How to Make 

$500 Yearly Profit 



WITH TWELVE HENS 



HOW TO MAKE THEfl SET SIX DAYS 
INSTEAD OF TWENTY-ONE 



A WONDERFUL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 

FOR WHICH 

45 /lDe&als ant) Btplomas 

HAVE BEEN AWARDED TO 

A. P0R3J©TX, 



Profes&or of Gall|nociilti';rp';St,i^jic)K,' 



. * ■» 






Price, $t.00 



CHICAGO 

Scientific American Poultry Breeders' Association 

PUBLISHERS 



\ 



o 



4>\ 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Receivec 

APR. 25 1901 

COPVRl«MT Et«Tl»V 

CLASS CUXXc. N». 

697t 

COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT, rgOI, BY 
WILLIAM E. HURLBUT, CHICAGO 



'SF 487 

.C792 NOTE. 
Copy 1 

PROF. ADOLPHE CORBETT, 

Formerly Director of the Gallinoculture Institute of HicksviHe, N. K, 

AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK, 

IN WHICH A NEW PROCESS FOR RAISING POULTRY IS DESCRIBEIi 
WELL AS THE FOWLS' DISEASES AND THEIR CURES, HAS RF.CEU^ 



45 



GOLD AND SILVER MEDALS 
AND DIPLOMAS 



\t 



The Centennial Exhibition, 

The Chili International Exposition, 

The American Institute, 



AND FROM 



The most important County and State 

Agricultural Societies in the 

United States. 



TO THE READER 

The extraordinary rapidity with which the first edi- 
tions of this work have been exhausted, and the thou- 
sands of letters which have been received from readers 
in all parts of the world are proofs that the public 
has derived substantial profit from this discovery. 

Among these readers I notice with much pleasure, 
many eminent writers; men who have devoted their 
talents and intelligence to the benefiting of the large 
numbers of farmers and poultry breeders, whose toil 
has enhanced the national prosperity; — and to these 
particularly do I dedicate this work, and it was to 
increase their income that nearly two hundred years 
ago, the celebrated Reaumur, member of the Academy 
of Sciences of Paris, after having sacrificed his time 
and fortune, discovered how to hatch and raise poultry 
by means of the heat generated by horse manure, it 
was by continuing the study of this discovery, by 
thorough, patient and expensive researches, that I am 
now enabled to teach the public how to utilize this new 
process in all its workings, with ease and success, for 
which I earned numerous awards, a list of which will 
be found further on. 

This work also contains the result of my experience 
acquired during twenty years of practice in raising 
poultry, therefore this book has been written without 

7 



8 TO THE READER 

any literary pretensions whatever, but to demonstrate 
with facts a money-making discovery, and I notice 
with much satisfaction that the press has devoted both 
its time and space to explain to its readers the useful- 
ness and simplicity of this discovery to advance the 
out-of-date poultry raising industry and this corrob- 
orates the well-known fact, that the public is guided 
by it, which induces me to reproduce a few quotations 
taken from long articles which were called to my 
attention, hoping their reading will be valuable to 
those interested in the matter. 

THE AUTHOR. 



SOME OF THE PRESS OPINIONS REFER- 
RING TO THIS BOOK 

New York Herald 
. . . This book is a practical treatise on Gallinocul- 
ture, and a description of the new process of hatching 
eggs and raising chickens, the invention of Prof. Cor- 
bett, for which several medals were awarded him by 
all the great exhibitions. It is replete with minute 
explanations, which cannot fail to be of great service 
to farmers and breeders. 

America7t AgriciilUirist , N. Y. 

Of late years there have been many efforts made to 
perfect a method of artificial incubation and to get rid 
of the hen, which, unfortunately, is too fussy and too 
slow for advanced ideas. Now that poultry bears so 
high a price, and young chickens for broilers are worth 
more than full-grown fowls, it is very desirable to 
have some way of improving on the slow and unsatis- 
factory methods provided by nature. . . . The most 
promising of all the methods, old or new, with which 
we have become acquainted, is the invention of Prof. 
Corbett, which we describe and illustrate. . . . Prof. 
Corbett has been very successful. We saw the proof 
of his success. 

Chicago Tribune 

Hatching eggs without the help of a hen is the 
easiest matter possible, and in no sense whatever con- 
trary to nature .... Here is an important considera- 

9 



10 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

tion to farmers : In the winter months, especially out 
West, little farm work can be done ; but if our agricul- 
tural readers will only give their time to poultry rais- 
ing on the above system during that period, the cash 
books will show unexpected results at the annual 
balancing. The system itself is so simple that chil- 
dren of six or seven years of age can carry it out as 
well as adults; perhaps better, for they are more gen- 
tle and cautious in their actions. 

Chickens hatched and raised by this process are as 
healthy and vigorous as any to be found; they are 
incomparably more numerous than those produced by 
what is ignorantly termed the "natural" method. 
Some farmers, however, as well as many professional 
poultry breeders, possess such crow-bar-like backbones 
that they cannot bend to any proposed improvement 
on the old style of doing things. 

Neiv York Tribune 

. . . Professor Corbett has accomplished this result 
by his discovery, and as he is carrying out his invention 
on an immense scale at Hicks ville, the readers of "The 
Tribune" may learn something from a report of his 
operations, . . . All known descriptions of domestic 
poultry are hatched and raised on this estate by the 
above means. . . . These descriptions include com- 
mon barn-yard fowls, Dorkings, Game White Leghorn, 
Black Spanish, Brahmas, Shanghais, and, as some 
amateurs choose to call them, Cochin-Chinas and 
Brahma-pootras. They are all amenable to the same 
system, as well as geese, turkeys, ducks, partridges, 
etc., and all of them are equally productive and 
remunerative. His process is alike valuable to the 
housewife of moderate means, passing her leisure 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 11 

moments in the poultry yard, as to the breeder on a 
large scale who seeks to supply great city markets 
with eggs and chickens. 

Cli icago In tcr- Ocea n 
... It is replete with minute explanations, which 
cannot fail to be of great service to farmers and 
breeders. 

The Nebraska Farmer^ Lincoln, Neb. 

... In this book the professor also demonstrates 
how to make hens set six days instead of twenty-one. 

Neiv York Evening World 
. . . We might then elect Professor Corbett mayor 
and build a solid gold municipal hennery in honor of 
him. 

North Pacific Rural Spirit, Portland, Ore. 
. . . He thus not only hatches the chicks without 
the aid of the hen, but he also explains how to raise 
them by the same principle. 

Cincinnati Times 
Hatching eggs without the help of the hen is the 
easiest matter possible, and in no sense whatever con- 
trary to nature, as Professor Corbett ably demon- 
strates. Every farmer and housewife should read this 
work. 

Philadelphia Sunday Sun 
. . . We have read this book, and have found it the 
most valuable and the most interesting work for 
poultry men and farmers which has ever been pub- 
lished. 

Illustrated Weekly, N. Y. 
. . . This "valuable discovery" has reached per- 



12 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

fection through the labors and researches of Professor 
A. Corbett. The discovery will undoubtedly be of 
gieat benefit to all who breed poultry. 

The Daily Stockman^ South Omaha, Neb. 
. . . This treatise on Gallinoculture the professor 
says, that those who let the hens set twenty-one days, 
are not only guilty of neglecting their interests, but 
commit an act of cruelty to animals which is pun- 
ishable by our Great Master. 

Southern Agriculturist 
. . . This is a very interesting and useful book to 
the poultry breeder and housewife in the rural dis- 
tricts, and will aid the farmer to hatch eggs by this 
heat, and thus hasten to the spring market a large 
number of chickens when the price is good. 

Neiv York Press 
. . . Prof. A. Corbett has published a book with 
the significant title of "How to Make $500 Yearly 
Profit with Twelve Hens." The author has made a 
life study of poultry raising and he has applied a nat- 
ural way of incubation. 

Philadelphia Press 
. . . Professor A. Corbett, the inventor of the proc- 
ess, has devoted most of his lifetime to the study of 
animals; he is the author of several works on ornith- 
ology. During the last severe winter, with the snow 
several feet deep on the ground, he was almost over- 
run with 5^oung chickens. 

Neiv York Sunday News 
. . . It is an old and true saying that "the man who 
causes two blades of grass to grow where only one was 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 13 

found before" is a benefactor to his race; and, judging 
by this standard, Professor Corbett deserves the grati- 
tude of his fellow citizens. He hatches and raises 
poultry of all descriptions by the simple method 
of . . . 

New York Pathfinder 
$500 Dollars Profit from Twelve Hens 

We have received from the publishers a very inter- 
esting and instructive work with the title of "How to 
Make $500 Yearly with Twelve Hens." At the first 
glance of the title, we naturally formed the idea that 
there was nothing in it, but we commenced reading 
and found facts and figures therein stated that we were 
compelled to continue our reading till we had finished, 
and we came to the conclusion that the assertions 
made in the title contained more truth than fiction. 

To those who are interested in raising poultry there 
will be foimd in this book a great deal of information 
that will enlighten them and demonstrate the possi- 
bility that what the author says can be accomplished. 

Hundreds of people have started out in poultry rais- 
ing, but have failed from the want of knowledge and 
experience necessary for success. This work will sup- 
ply the necessary conditions for success. A dollar laid 
out for a copy of this book will be well invested. 

The Rural Calif ornian^ Los Angeles 
Hold Your Breath and Read 
We have received from the publishers a book bear- 
ing the significant title "How to Make $500 Yearly 
Profit with Twelve Hens," by A. Corbett, Professor 
of Gallinoculture Science. Professor Corbett has 
made a life study of poultry and poultry raising, and 
he has applied a natural way of artificial incubation 



U HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

without the use of lamp, hot water or electricity. He 
thus not only hatches the chicks without the aid of the 
hen, but he also explains how to raise them by the 
same principle, and holds that chickens, and all 
domestic fowls, can be raised at a cost not to be com- 
pared with the expense of raising them in the ordinary 
way. The method is strongly endorsed by leading 
journals, scientific men and exhibitions. By the latter 
he has been awarded no less than forty-five gold and 
silver medals and diplomas. In this book the professor 
also demonstrates how to make hens set six days, 
instead of twenty-one. 

New York Journal 

Some Facts about Hens — Amateur Farmers Will 

Be Glad To Know What Twelve 

Hens Can Do 

A book which should bring joy into the heart of the 
amateur and suburban farmer, as well as the less 
interesting one who makes his living out of the earth, 
is "How to Make $500 Yearly Profit with Twelve 
Hens," by Professor A. Corbett. It confirms the 
fondest hopes which the amateur entertained before 
entering into agriculture as a profitable pastime for 
his spare hours. It is hardly necessary to point out 
that if you can make $500 a year with twelve hens, you 
can make $2,000 a year with forty-eight hens, and so 
on. 

The way to do this is to hatch out the eggs by a 
process which the professor describes. . . . 

There are all sorts of practicable instructions in the 
art of hatching eggs in Professor Corbett's work. 
Those who wish to make large incomes with a limited 
number of hens should get it and study. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 15 

New England Farmer^ Boston 
. . . The method is strongly endorsed. . . . How 
to make hens set six days instead of twenty-one, is 
demonstrated. ... 

T/ie Farmer's Journal, Buffalo 
. . . He thus not only hatches eggs without the aid 
of the hen, but he also explains how to raise chickens 
by the same principle. . . . 

Fireside Reveries, Rochester 
Profit in Poultry 

The poultry breeder experieaces considerable diffi- 
culty and no small amount of loss from the fact that 
so few hens are good setters. It has long been a well 
ascertained truth that the females of certain breeds are 
all but valueless for this purpose. 

There is no necessity, however, for the employment 
of hens in the hatching of eggs, the ancient Egyptians, 
three thousand years ago, having accomplished the 
required result by artificial means alone. Other 
nations in later years have produced similar effects by 
like methods, so that it is safe to say that, beyond the 
duty of laying eggs, hens are not needed in the poultry- 
yard. 

We have received from the publishers a book bear- 
ing the significant title "How to Make $500 Yearly 
Profit with Twelve Hens," by A. Corbett, Processor 
of Gallinoculture Science. Prof. Corbett has made a 
life study of poultry and poultry raising, and he has 
applied a natural way of artificial incubation without 
the use of lamp, hot water or electricity. He thus not 
only hatches the chicks without the aid of the hen, but 
he also explains how to raise them by the same prin- 



16 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

ciple. The method is strongly endorsed by leading 
journals, scientific men, and exhibitions. By the lat- 
ter he has been awarded no less than forty-five gold 
and silver medals and diplomas. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer 
"How to Make $500 Yearly Profit with Twelve 
Hens," by A. Corbett, Professor of Gallinoculture 
Science. Professor Corbett has made a life study 
of poultry and poultry raising, and he has ap- 
plied a natural way of artificial incubation without 
the use of lamp, hot water or electricity. He thus not 
only hatches the chicks without the aid of the hen, but 
he also explains how to raise them by the same prin- 
ciple, and holds that chickens and all domestic fowls 
can be raised at a cost not to be compared with the 
expense of raising them in the ordinary way. In this 
book the professor also demonstrates how to make 
hens set six days instead of twenty-one and on page 
124 of this treatise on • Gallinoculture he says, that 
those who let the hens set twenty-one days, are not 
only guilty of neglecting their interests, but commit 
an act of cruelty to animals, which is punishable by 
the law of man, and forbidden by our Great Master. 

Our Home Journal, New Orleans 
. . . The valuable plan of hatching eggs and raising 
poultry has made Professor Corbett famous, both in 
this country and in France. His plan is so simple 
that it can be operated by any one. . . . 

The Monthly Sentinel, Joliet, III. 
. . . Prof. Corbett has made a life study of poultry 
and poultry raising and he has applied a natural way 
of incubation without the use of lamp, hot water or . 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 17 

electricity. He thus not only hatches the chicks with- 
out the aid of the hen, but he also explains how to raise 
them by the same principle. 

Country Gentleman^ Albany 
. . . The only feasible method, which is at the 
same time cheap. The book, devoted to poultry mat- 
ters generally, will be found useful by anyone who 
keeps fowls. . . , 

Long Is/and Fanner 
. . . We have read this interesting work and are 
confident nothing has been published which will prove 
so important to the farming interest. 

Boston Traveler 
. . . This book should be in the hands of all who 
devote time and attention to the raising of fowls. . , . 

The Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock 
How To Make $500 a Year with Twelve Hens 
. . . The method is strongly endorsed by leading 
journals, scientific men, and exhibitions. By the lat- 
ter, Prof. Corbett has been awarded no less than forty- 
five gold and silver medals and diplomas. In this 
book, the professor also demonstrated how to make 
hens set six days instead of twenty-one. 

Chicago Weekly Tribune 
. . . The vast crowds of young chickens to be seen 
from time to time at the Hicksville Institute prac- 
tically prove that the system there adopted is a correct 
one, for the youngsters are as bright in plumage, 
ravenous, and active as any to be found elsewhere, 
whilst the mortality amongst them is incomparably 
less. 



18 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

The Corbett system is equally operative in the dead 
of winter as during spring, summer or fall. Last Jan- 
uary and February, with the snow many feet deep on 
Long Island, and the mercury trying its best to run to 
the bottom of the thermometer, the Institute was 
literally overrun with thousands of newly-born chick- 
ens. 

American Artisan, iV. Y. 

. . . Heat has long been used, precisely the same 
principle is adopted by Professor Corbett to hatch 
chickens. . . , We recommend everybody to read 
Professor Corbett's book, which is the best work we 
have read upon the subject. 

The Drovers' Journal, South Omaha 

How To Make Hens Set Six Days Instead 

OF Twenty-One 

The poultry breeder experiences considerable diffi- 
culty and no small amount of loss from the fact that so 
few hens are good setters. It has long been a well 
ascertained truth that the females of certain breeds 
are all but valueless for this purpose. 

There is no necessity, however, for the employment 
of hens in the hatching of eggs, the ancient Egyptians, 
three thousand years ago, having accomplished the 
required result by artificial means alone. Other 
nations in later years have produced similar effects by 
like methods, so that it is safe to say that, beyond the 
duty of laying eggs, hens are not needed in the 
poultry-yard. . . . 

Prof. Corbett has made a life study of poultry and 
poultry raising, and he has applied a natural way of 
artificial incubation without the use of lamp, hot water 
or electricity. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 19 

The Progressive Farmer^ Mt. Vernon 
Profit in Poultry 
We have from the publishers a book bearing the 
significant title "How to Make $500 Yearly Profit with 
Twelve Hens," by A. Corbett, Professor of Gallino- 
cultiire Science. Prof. Corbett has made a life study 
of poultry and poultry raising, and he has discovered 
a natural way of artificial incubation, without the use 
of lamp, hot water or electricity. He thus not only 
hatches the chicks without the aid of the hen or arti- 
ficial heat but he constructs brooders on the- same 
principle and holds that chickens, and all domestic 
fowls can be raised at a cost not to be compared with 
the cost of raising them in the ordinary way. The 
method is strongly endorsed by the leading journals, 
scientific men, and exhibitions. By the latter he has 
been awarded forty-five gold and silver medals and 
diplomas. In addition to hatching and raising, the 
book contains plain and simple treatment of all known 
diseases of fowls, how to choose, how to market, etc. 

The Western Plowman 

... In this book the professor also demonstrated 
how to make hens set six days. 

He has been awarded no less than forty-five medals 
and diplomas. . . . 

The Southern Weekly News 
. . . Professor Corbett has made, a life study of 
poultry and poultry raising and he has applied a nat- 
ural way of artificial incubation without the use of 
lamp, hot water or electricity. 

Moore'' s Rural Nezu Yorker 
The poultry breeder experiences considerable diffi- 



20 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

culty and no small amount of loss from the fact that so 
few hens are good setters. It has long been a well- 
ascertained truth that the females of certain breeds 
are all but valueless for this purpose. . . . There is 
no necessity, however, for the employment of hens in 
the hatching of eggs, the ancient Egyptians, three 
thousand years ago, having accomplished the required 
result by artificial means alone. Other nations in 
later years have produced similar effects by like 
methods, so that it is safe to say that, beyond the duty 
of laying eggs, hens are not needed in the poultry- 
yard. A visit to the Gallinoculture Institute of Pro- 
fessor Adolphe Corbett, at Hicksville, L. I., will 
satisfy the most skeptical on this point. Fowls of all 
breeds and ages are there to be found in imnjense 
numbers; all of them in the best condition of health. 
The system employed is the invention of Mr. Corbett 
himself. . . . The poultry raised by this method are 
in all respects as healthy and vigorous as any to be 
seen elsewhere, . . . 

Hempstead Inquirer^ N. Y. 
The exhibition at the late Fair of the Queens 
County Agricultural Society of Corbett's Hatching 
Apparatus attracted universal attention and comment. 
It was something, the value of which to farmers and 
poultry raisers was comparatively unknown. The 
award of a gold medal and diploma to Mr. Corbett is 
but a just acknowledgment of the value of his appa- 
ratus, and will be ^approved by all who, like ourselves, 
have seen it in operation. 

Daily Saratogian, N. Y. 
The idea of hatching eggs by artificial heat is no 
new one, nor even the idea of using the natural, even 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 21 

heat of . but no one has succeeded before Prof. 
Corbett in inventing a simple apparatus for utilizing 
that kind of heat. After much experimenting and 
expense, at last Prof. Corbett completed an invention 
very successful in hatching healthy chickens, and said 
by good judges to be the great discovery of recent 
years Several of the boxes are on exhibition, chicks 
of different breeds and ages running about or scuffling 
for crumbs and grain. A crowd stood about this 
exhibition hour after hour, and indeed it is one of the 
most interesting features of the fair. 

The Evening Post, N. V. 
This machine, or rather machinery, as there are two 
processes connected with it, does the whole work with 
the exception of producing the eggs. The eggs are 
put into one compartment and the heat required for 
incubation is obtained from . . . 



OFFICIAL AWARDS 

MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE UNITED 
STATES INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION 

MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE AMERICAN 
INSTITUTE, N. Y. 

GRAND MEDAL OF HONOR AT THE 

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AT 

SANTIAGO, CHILI 

GOLD MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE 
QUEENS COUNTY, N. Y., AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY 

GOLD MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE 

FARMERS' AND MECHANICS' 

CLUB, HICKSVILLE, N. Y. 

NEW YORK STATE FAIR, ROCHESTER, 
First Premium and Certificate of Merit. 

SUFFOLK COUNTY, N. Y., AGRICULTURAL 
SOCIETY 

First Premium and Diploma, 
23 



24 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

AMERICAN INSTITUTE 

Diploma of continued excellence awarded one j^ear 
after the first diploma. 

DIPLOMA BY THE NEW JERSEY STATE 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY CAPITAL STATE FAIR ASSO- 
CIATION, AUSTIN, TEXAS 

DIPLOMA BY NORTHEASTERN AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF INDIANA 

DIPLOMA BY EGG HARBOR CITY NEW 
JERSEY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY MUSCATINE, IOWA, AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY FREMONT, OHIO, AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY CARROLLTON, OHIO, AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY BROCTON, MASS., AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY COLUMBIA COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF PENN'A 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 25 

DIPLOMA BY DELAWARE COUNTY, OHIO, 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY UNION FAIR ASSOCIATION 
OF CENTRALIA, ILL. 

DIPLOMA BY JO-DAVIESS COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF GALENA, ILL. 

DIPLOMA BY FRANKLIN COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF PENN'A 



DIPLOMA BY COSHOCTON, OHIO, AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY JEFFERSON COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF OHIO 

DIPLOMA BY DENISON, IOWA, AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY LUCAS COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF IOWA 

DIPLOMA BY MACOMB COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN 

DIPLOMA BY FRANKLIN COUNTY, MAINE, 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY BRADFORD COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL .SOCIETY OF TOWANDA, PA. 



26 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

DIPLOMA BY EATON COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF CHARLOTTE, MICH. 

DIPLOMA BY STARK COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF CANTON, OHIO 



DIPLOMA BY LENAWEE, MICH., AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY LIVINGSTON COUNTY, N. Y., 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY THE VAN BUREN COUNTY 

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, PAW PAW, 

MICH. 



DIPLOMA BY THE LYON COUNTY, IOWA, 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY THE HILLSDALE COUNTY, 
MICH., AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



ALBANY, N. Y., AGRICULTURAL AND 
ARTS ASSOCIATION 

First Premium and Certificate of Merit 



SARATOGA COUNTY, N. Y., AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

First Premium and Diploma of Merit 



INTRODUCTION 

"There is nothing new under the sun," says Solo- 
mon the Wise, so that artificial incubation is also not a 
new thing, although little practiced. In the most 
ancient times the Egyptians knew the art of hatching- 
eggs without placing them under hens. These 
enlightened and wise people who had found every 
means to make life easy and pleasant only because 
they had sought it through agriculture, yet possessed 
several ideas which we have not yet discovered, and 
almost now despair to find out, and it is only by direct 
observation and according to the harmonious laws of 
nature that such discoveries are made. It is hardly 
necessary to call the attention of the public to the 
manner in which birds set on their eggs. And every 
one knows also, that there are some birds (hens for 
instance) which not only hatch out eggs that they have 
not laid, but even those also of other species. 

These peculiarities in revealing themselves to our 
notice have naturally led us to think there should be, 
perhaps, a means to obtain broods independent of the 
hen, since her intervention has been already shown to 
be insignificant and without any regard to the species. 
This our apparatus does accomplish. I was convinced 
of the possibility of it on reflecting that even the sun 
could take the place of the bird — as it serves in some 
instances to hatch out eggs, we know thus the croco- 
dile, turtle and the ostrich bury their eggs in the sand, 
and it is the warmth of the sun that hatches the young 
ones. The example of the ostrich, especially, appears 

27 



28 INTRODUCTION 

to be conclusive, therefore, I believe that if the sun 
could hatch out the eggs of the ostrich it would not be 
impossible to have a like success with other eggs by 
applying artificial heat. 

To-day the Museum of Natural History in Paris, 
exhibits to the view of the curious, enormous serpents 
born in hot-houses by the artificial incubation of their 
eggs. 

Nothing in fact is easier, says an author named 
Parmentier, than to create the art of hatching eggs 
without the aid of the hen. It only consists in imitat- 
ing the process that chance has indicated to man and 
simplifies itself to this, to choose a place where the 
eggs can receive the same temperature that they would 
have under tlie bird that laid the eggs and during the 
time that would be required to hatch them under her 
wings. 



r\ 



ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION 

The art of artificially hatching hens' eggs has been 
known in Egypt and China for centuries. In Egypt 
the invention is attributed to the ancient priests of 
Isis. According to some historians, Isis and Ceres are 
the same benignant princes who reigned once over 
Egypt. According to others the art of agriculture is 
personified under these names, and she was repre- 
sented with a garland of ears of corn on her head, 
holding a lighted torch in one hand and in the other a 
poppy, which was sacred to her. 

The priests of the temple of Isis, in Egypt as well as 
in Celt, appear especially to have been employed in 
agriculture and rural economy. The importance of 
this seems to have deserved a like institution since 
they studied this great science and extended its prin- 
ciples under the name of the goddess Ceres, who was 
the divine guardian of the fields and every kind of 
nature's produce. 

Whatever it was it seems certain that the prosperity 
of the ancient kingdoms of Eg3''pt, Damascus, Palestina, 
Jerusalem and Samaria was, in a great measure, due 
to the benefits they derived from the artificial hatch- 
ing of hen's eggs. 

The ovens, or hatching place3,|ttf the Egyptians, 
called in the country ma-mals, anlpwhich were very 
numerous in the kingdoms before mentioned, are now 
only in existence in Mansoura, in the village of Berma, 
situated in the delta of the Nile. The latest historians 
give the name of Behamians to all the inhabitants of 

29 



30 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

five or six villages, of which Berma is the chief and 
center, and where the ovens are most numerous. The 
inhabitants of these villages are the only ones who 
to-day have preserved the hereditary industry of 
directing these ovens. 

On research I find that the ovens of Egypt alone in 
olden times hatched out annually one hundred millions 
of chickens ; even to-day the ma-mals of the Behamians 
still hatch out annually thirty millions, but history is 
silent upon the kind of nourishment given to these 
chickens. But one will say, how is it that so flourish- 
ing and prosperous a business has for the most part 
disappeared from these countries, and is only found 
to-day in a small and limited province of the Egyptian 
Delta? I cannot account for it any more than that 
these countries have become barren and depopulated, 
which once, according to history, were fertile and 
inhabited, and of the destruction of towns and cities of 
which the ruins still exist and bear witness to their 
ancient splendor. 

To the Emperor Constantino is attributed a memoir 
upon the artificial incubation of the Egyptian ovens, 
so much did he consider the multiplication of every 
kind of poultry to the welfare of the nation. 

Another memoir on the same subject is attributed to 
Democrates, the ancient philosopher who was in the 
habit of crying with joy on beholding the beauties of 
nature in opposition to his companion, Heraclites, who 
always laughed at the same. 

Plinus, the naturalist, and Diodorus, of Sicily, speak 
in their writings of the great benefits a nation would 
receive from this method. 

The history of the Egyptian ma-mals and the Chi- 
nese boxes (these are only for hatching duck eggs) 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 31 

was brought into Europe by the Pastor Juan Gonzales, 
of Mendoce, in Spain, and translated into French in 
1600 by Luc de la Porte. 

Before Gonzales' time historians had spoken of the 
Egyptian ovens, and amongst them Aristot, but these 
had only written from traditions, whilst at Florence 
and at Naples they have already built these ovens or 
kilns. 

In the year 1415 Charles VIL built some k Amboise 
in France, and Francis L, at Montrichard, about the 
year 1540. These imdertakings probably met with but 
little success, because these ovens were built accord- 
ing to hearsay or tradition. One of the Florentine 
dukes sent for an Egyptian director, and they say that 
this man succeeded well. Francis I. also followed the 
same plan and met with a like success; but, notwith- 
standing this, it was abandoned. A physician of 
Nanterre, named Bonnemain, is the first since 1777 to 
establish hatching ovens, which communicated their 
heat to the eggs by means of the circulation in tubes 
of hot water. Bonnemain tried every expedient, and, 
after several unsuccessful attempts, started an estab- 
lishment at No. 4 Rue des Deux Portes, in Paris, and 
where he had these ovens sufficiently large, that he 
hatched out one thousand a day. He is often accused 
of exaggeration, but nevertheless history records the 
fact that he had chickens all the year round, and that 
he supplied the Imperial Court of France in all sea- 
sons, and that the public markets were overstocked 
with his birds. The disastrous events of 1814 were 
the ruin of this fine establishment. Bonnemain pub- 
lished a pamphlet in 18 16 giving a description of his 
ovens regulated by fire, and he said his method was 
the result of fifty years' deep meditation and trials. 



33 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

In this pamphlet he does not give the key of his 
method, but asks for subscriptions to buy his ovens, 
and to induce amateurs to try it, he gives statistics of 
the profit each hatching gave every year. 

Bonnemain, moreover, assures us that he did obtain 
this success during fifteen years, and it was only after 
his establishment was ruined by the invading armies 
that he asks for aid and assistance from the govern- 
ment, capitalists and amateurs; but all failed him, 
either from disdain, want of confidence, or from polit- 
ical motives. 

The price of his boxes was very high, the small ones 
costing 1 2. 00 an egg, and large ones 75 cents. His 
fire regulator was considered a very useful invention. 

Martial Bonnes, mathematical professor and astron- 
omer in the observatory at Toulouse, wanted the gov- 
ernment to send a commission to Egypt to introduce 
the art of making these ovens or machines for hatch- 
ing chickens, and to bring back at the same time 
experienced Behamians to manage these ovens, etc. 

Another author, under the same administration of the 
Haut Rhin, I find has published also a book explain- 
ing to the government the great importance of this 
importation to France. He says: "I would like to see 
these men and their machines enter France and estab- 
lish themselves in the palaces of our king;" and then 
he adds: "The enemies of this enterprise will at first 
scoff at and ridicule the project of hatching chickens 
artificiall)'', and will have a thousand stories to tell of 
these hens' eggs, the quality of their flesh, etc. ; but 
all these pleasantries ought not to discourage the 
undertaking, and they will pass away as smoke." 

I can only join my good wishes to the hopes of these 
men — true friends to the prosperity of their country 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 33 

and to the welfare of every one, which would result in 
the multiplication of poultry yards. 

I will now relate the attempts that have been made 
of this kind by my contemporaries, and the success 
they have met with. 

In 1844, Mr. Bir, a merchant of Courbevoie, near 
Paris, sent to the exhibition of that year, a box for 
hatching-, containing 60 eggs. 

In 1848, Mr. Vallie, keeper of the serpent gallery at 
the museum of the Jardin de Plantes, at Paris, sent 
also to the exhibition of that year, an incubator to 
hatch out 100 eggs. 

These two boxes, made after Bonnemain's model, 
but much smaller, were heated with lamps. Mr. 
Vallie even admitted that his box was not fit to be 
used on a large scale, but only as a piece of furniture 
for amateurs. About the same time, however, 
appeared the great incubator of Messrs. Adrien, Jr. , 
& Tricoche, who founded an establishment at Vau- 
girard, France. In 1853 Mr. Cantallo established an 
institution of numerous incubators, and, according to 
the English papers, these are all heated with lamps and 
he- sends a large quantity of poultry to the London 
market annually. 

Dr. Preterre, dentist, of New York, has also devoted 
much of his time to artificial incubation ; I have seen 
and met him at the Farmer's Club at the Cooper Insti- 
tute, New York; and in March, 1874, where he 
exhibited numerous chickens which were hatched by 
means of horse manure. 

There are also several incubators in the United 
States. Some have the lamps on t? e top, and others 
have them on the sides ; all have ij lore or less pipes 
holding mercury or alcohol. 



/ 



> 



34 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

I believe I have now exhausted all my information 
about recent incubators, and have posted my reader 
in all that has been done in this line, and he can now 
form some idea of the different experiences that have 
been made to arrive at a practical and paying machine, 
for it is not enough to hatch eggs, but it must be done 
with profit; for if, to obtain a few chickens, you must 
spend more than they are worth or more than they 
will sell for, the thing is a failure ; and I have never 
heard that any great success has been attained by 
machines heated by lamps. One can easily under- 
stand that those persons who wish to engage in the 
raising of poultry, are much embarrassed, and hesitate 
before risking their money in an enterprise in which 
the best means to carry it out are still being looked 
for. Thus does it happen that, after due reflection 
and deep study, T have decided to found my establish- 
ment, and before investing $40,000 in a poultry estab- 
lishnaent, I certainly ought to thoroughly understand 
what I am undertaking, and even better than any 
other. I ought to be most interested in finding the 
most advantageous manner of applying artificial incu- 
bation. My first plan was to follow the natural rais- 
ing of hens, etc. , for, like many others, I had only a 
weak reliance on the present machines, for I have 
seen them in operation both in Paris and London; but 
both proprietors, told me that they did not believe it 
would be practicable on a large scale ; for an establish- 
ment that would contain 60 artificial hatching boxes in 
operation ought to have 120 lamps burning night and 
day with kerosene ; and there was great danger, to say 
nothing of the difficulty of directing to an equal height 
such a number of wicks to give to each incubator an 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 35 

equal warmth. And how much money would it not 
cost daily for kerosene? 

These considerations, added to those of the neces- 
sary expense required to buy these machines, were a 
very serious objection to me, and I was forced to 
reject this system, without condemi.ing it, however. 
I bought several machines to try them, those that gave 
me the greatest returns were kept in operation for a 
time; but from one only a small percentage, and from 
another I never could obtain a single hatching, and 
thus it was that I did not spend much time with such 
expensive toys and, at the same time, with such little 
profit. I still continued to look for some other way 
of arriving at the desired end, and to see if it was not 
possible to obtain practical and commercial results, 
for, if it was once found, I had before me an impor- 
tant affair; with my organization I could take care of 
any quantity of chickens that I could hatch. I then 
bought every book that treated of incubation, and you 
can judge my surprise when I found that each author 
recommended particularly a different machine. It was 
not long before I discovered that these recommenda- 
tions were only complimentary, for I had already one 
of the machines thus strongly recommended by one 
author, and from which it was impossible to hatch out 
a single chicken. But what struck me most was that 
only a few of them spoke of Reaumur's system, 
amongst which is Burnham, who mentions in his 
work, at page 124, that Mr. Manowry at Mouy, 
France, had adopted Reaumur's system. 

However, not being able to let him pass without 
mention, the greater number ingenuously say that he 
did obtain some success, but they take good care not 
to give any explanation ; this is easily understood, as 



36 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

they would have injured their favorite. Our aston- 
ishment changes into indignation when we read that 
these authors, who were so reserved about the cele- 
brated Reaumur, were lavish in their praises of the sell- 
ers of the boxes without value (the rotten work of 
some tinsmith), who, perhaps had money enough to 
buy the writer's good will. 

Mr. Reaumur was a clever French naturalist and 
author of several works, of great value and several of 
his treatises are well known and the best that were 
written before Bufifon's time; in consequence of these 
works, Reaumur was made a member of the Royal 
Academy of Sciences in Paris, where he read his first 
paper on St. Martin's Day, 1747, when the public of 
that time seemed to have judged as he had done of the 
great advantages to be expected of making a business 
of chicken raising and he further stated, one hundred 
and fifty years ago, that the multiplying of poultry 
yards, of which such a large number are consumed, 
could not be overdone. 

The Abbe Copineau undertook to perfect Reaumur's 
method; in 1780 he published a work called "Artificial 
Ornithotrophie ; or, The Art of Hatching and Raising 
Poultry by Means of Artificial Heat." The same 
work was re-published in 1795, under the title of 
"Man Rival to Nature; or, The Art of giving Exist- 
ence to Birds, and Principally of Poultry." In 1816 
the learned Bonnemain also published a very instruc- 
tive memoir, and of real value. So that at last we 
find a number of eminent men occupying themselves 
with this important question. 

Researches and Success 
> The public will now understand from what sources 
I have sought to learn ; and after all the experiments 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 37 

I have made, I concluded, at last, that Reaumur's sys- 
tem appeared to be most feasible — it being the easiest 
and less expensive to follow. I therefore, from that 
time began to practice it, thus : six casks were placed 
in a heap of manure, and 600 eggs were placed in 
them. All were lost. It was in winter, and I thought 
that in the cellar the casks would keep at a better 
degree of heat ; but there not being room enough, and 
the want of ventilation, were the causes of my failing. 
Not in the least discouraged, although disappointed, I 
again placed eight casks under an old shed, and this 
time put 800 eggs in them ; the success would have 
been entire had not the rain fallen one day on part of 
the manure heap, which cooled it off. Nevertheless, 
from the other part I proved the success, and you can 
judge how delighted I was to see severa,l hundred 
young chickens hatched. 

Let the reader rightly understand that we did not 
have entire confidence in the success to be derived 
from this venture at the time, as it was necessary to 
find a place to put the newly-hatched chickens in, 
which appeared to us like a true army of invaders. 
Those persons who have never seen hundreds of 
young chickens of one and two days old, can form no 
idea of the busy and noisy household. Luckily we had 
an artificial mother, warmed by one lamp, and I 
placed the young chickens in it; whether it was the 
smell of the kerosene that was injurious to them, or 
whether the heat produced by the hot water did not 
accomplish the wished-for object, I lost the greater 
number of them and I had the misfortune to prove 
that it was especially from crowding themselves in the 
corners that they died. This was a bitter disappoint- 
ment to me. As there was now no doubt that I could 



38 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

hatch eggs with the aid of manure it only remained to 
improve on the casks and mothers and the manner of 
directing or regulating the heat, besides providing the 
proper and necessary ventilation, and to supply the 
necessary quantity of air. I first of all began my 
improvements on the artificial mother, in suppressing 
the corners as much as possible, and at last had one 
built without corners, measuring twelve feet in length 
and ten feet in width, and warmed by two kerusene 
stoves. I thought myself very happy in having such 
a large artificial mother in which I could place 1,800 
chickens of different ages. Everything was complete 
in it, park, perches and ventilation. Unfortunately, 
one night in April one of the lamps exploded and set 
the building on fire in which it was (which measured 
200 feet in length, and cost $6,000). The dog gave 
the alarm and soon every one was awakened and com- 
menced to extinguish the fire by means of the India 
rubber hose kept on the premises for such a calamity 
and with a plentiful supply of water the building was 
saved by a miracle, but I was not so fortunate with my 
young brood — nearly all of them were smothered or 
suffocated. Again I was forced to resign myself to 
fate and give up the raising of my pullets artificially 
by means of lamps. The insurance company paid the 
damage to the building, but the poultry was not 
insured. 

Having got over this loss I puzzled my brains to find 
a new system of raising them, and began to think I 
should have to renounce it, when the happy thought 
struck me to try the manure heap, and to see if I could 
not make it do for the chickens what it did so well for 
the eggs. I then placed a common box in the manure 
and put in it some newly-hatched chicks; this was 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 39 

rather a bold proceeding, for the chances were that I 
should find only dead ones in the morning. Judge ray 
surprise when at five o'clock in the morning I opened 
the box and saw all these little ones with their large 
eyes open, waiting their first meal, and they were 
quickly fed. 

This, then, was the solution of the great problem. 
Was it chance or luck? Nevertheless I had before me 
the fact that there were animated beings born in 
manure and receiving the warmth necessary for their 
welfare from the same source. Having already 
received so many checks and deceptions, I hesitated 
and refrained from shouting "Victory!" — Eureka it 
might be. 

A few more days will show me what success I might 
depend on in using this means of raising them, and all 
those that were daily hatched received the same treat- 
ment. At length, after fifteen days' experience I had 
only to fight with the corners of the box. For those 
who have the opportunity of visiting an establishment 
for rearing young chickens know full well how they 
will crowd into the corners; the stronger ones mount 
on the backs of the weaker, and these are, almost in 
all cases, victims to their companions. 

I now began to look for a box that would, in a cer- 
tain degree resemble the hen. Everybody knows that 
if she gives warmth to the chickens it is by covering 
them with her wings; but again, if an account was 
taken of the number she crushes by treading on them, 
of those she loses in walking round with them, you 
can easily see that the raiser pays dearly for the heat 
she gives. I will admit there are some mothers pat- 
terns of gentleness, tenderness and carefulness, and 
quite worthy of the praise and admiration bestowed on 



40 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

them, and will allow several authors to say all they 
can in their favor ; but if they were like myself, daily 
watching them and convinced of the reality, they 
would soon see how very many in general, destroy 
their young; it is by millions yearly that they could be 
counted. Up to the present time very few have 
troubled themselves about this great question, for the 
simple reason that this enormous loss being shared by 
all, it has not awakened the attention of the great 
poultry raisers. One of my neighbors who raises a 
great quantity of poultrj'', especially turkeys, lost in 
one day sixty-four chicks, their careful mothers having 
taken them off to a distance, when the rain came and 
they were lost. This man, a clever farmer, suffering 
so great a loss, has he ever thought he might avoid it? 
I don't believe he has. 

In order that my apparatus should be good, I kept 
strict account of the heat given to the chickens by the 
mother, the movement of the wings and especially of 
the amount of air that penetrated under her. After 
several days' labor and combinations I succeeded in 
obtaining all these results, and I found I had replaced 
the hen with great advantage, for really my apparatus 
is much superior to the hen. The stomach and the 
wings are, by a clever combination, beautifully imi- 
tated. Especially do chickens find this to be the case 
whilst growing up as well as when they are small. 
This apparatus having so admirably succeeded in rais- 
ing chickens, why could it not serve also to hatch 
them? To this important question I could not imme- 
diately reply ; so I began another experiment,' and the 
first trial failed, and upon my making further 
researches I discovered that what prevented the suc- 
cess of the incubation was simply in the quality of the 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 41 

wood of which the boxes were made. I then made 
another apparatus and new experiments, and at last 
succeeded. 

From^ this day I found I had solved an important 
problem, and that I could hatch and raise chickens 
v/ithout the assistance of any lamp, nor with any fire, 
and that manure alone would do it. Ah ! if Reaumur 
could rise from his ashes how happy would he be to 
see these facts established, and I would wish to see 
present near the hatching broods those authors who 
have so little gratitude for this renowned man of the 
past century. 

I wished to ascertain the commercial value of my 
invention, therefore I exhibited my apparatus at 
numerous state and county fairs, as well as several 
international exhibitions; the newspapers gave a 
description of it, unboundedly praising its merit, and 
the judges of awards unanimously reported that it was 
the most correct, the cheapest, and the most natural 
plan ever conceived, for which 

Forty-five Medals and Diplomas 
were awarded to me, accordingly, with the following 
facts : 

ist. Anyone who can handle a saw and hammer and 
drive a nail is able to make a similar apparatus. 

2d. It requires, no lamp, gas, iire, electricity, nor 
any risky ingredient to cause fire. 

3d. It can be operated all year round, because there 
is nothing to get out of order. 

4th. The brooder warms the chicks all over their 
bodies, and it can be placed in the open air, giving the 
young ones the much needed opportunity to run over 
the land. 



42 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

5th. There is 110 odor to cause the death of chicks, 
nor any possibility for them to smother each other. 

6th. It is a cheap plan for a housewife of moderate 
means to raise hens, ducks, geese, turkej^-s; and chil- 
dren can manage it as well as adults. 

The Patent Right 

Possessing my apparatus, my first business was to 
ask of the American and European Governments the 
protection that the law gives to inventors, etc. In 
granting me a patent every one who has seen my 
apparatus has immediately recognized its importance, 
and the benefit each might derive from it. 

I have been advised to sell my patent to a company 
so that I might at once realize a large fortune, but I 
prefer to remain the sole owner, fearing that once the 
apparatus is spread over the country our poultry and 
eggs would decrease in value in consequence of there 
being too large a quantity of poultry thrown on the 
market. Several of my friends have tried to dissuade 
me from this, and a gentleman of some celebrity and 
of great talent made use of these words: "If I had 
discovered this ingenious idea "I would esteem myself 
happy to leave it to my contemporaries as a souvenir 
of my passage on the earth." I replied, if your name 
was not already surrounded with glory I would pro- 
pose that you add yours to mine. You have witnessed 
my trials, disappointments and hopes, and have not 
only consoled me at times but encouraged me to try 
again, and this share is only your right. He refused 
this offer and said if I would sell my apparatus he 
would buy one. Two days later I sent him one, beg- 
ging him to accept it, being the only one that has left 
the Gallinoculture Institute and instead of sending it 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 43 

to his country seat he has it in his office for exhibition 
and takes great pleasure in showing- it to his friends. 
I will not divulge his name — not wishing to follow in 
the steps of a great number of venders who fill their 
prospectuses with honorable names it is true, but who, 
have no interest in the affair, and far from being satis- 
fied with the merchandise sent them, perhaps are only 
to be pitied in having just cause of complaint. A 
good thing recommends itself, and there is no occasion 
to use any humbug to make it sell, and I wish it par- 
ticularly understood that I desire the welfare of my 
friends and neighbors, the farmers of these United 
States, and work as willingly for their benefit as my 
profit and any reasonable person can clearly see that 
the profits I derive from this book will never begin to 
pay me for my time, money and labor bestowed on 
this patent, but expect a great deal from the interest 
the public will take in a business so simple and so 
interesting and offering such good returns for the time 
and attention bestowed upon it and especially when a 
thing is really good the inventor generally begins to 
turn it to his own profit. But such is not my present 
desire. What I have done at our establishment with a 
great many of these apparatuses is to hatch and raise 
poultry of every kind — chickens, turkeys, ducks and 
Guinea fowls, and one reason why I have not delivered 
the apparatus to the public sooner, is that, as I before 
stated, I would not flood the market, and, to a certain 
extent, put an end to the demand for poultry and 
eggs; but now, from the reports and statistics received 
on the subject, I happily find myself deceived, and find 
that, notwithstanding the quantity raised, buyers at a 
fair price will always be found. 



U HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

The Value of Eggs 

In a work on poultry I find that in New York and 
Boston alone were sold $6,000,000 worth of poultry, 
which exceeds the commercial value of all the swine 
and half the value of all the sheep, the entire value of 
the meat cattle, and over four times the total value of 
the horses and mules. One large hotel in Boston uses 
an average of one hundred dozen of eggs daily, and 
another in Philadelphia consumes one hundred and 
fifty dozen daily. The New York Evening Post sub- 
sequently set down the value of eggs and poultry at 
the enormous sum of $265,000,000. 

It is easy to understand that from such an enor- 
mous business there must be a great profit to those 
who busy themselves in the poultry business, and if it 
were possible for me to get at the daily sales, of 
which no account is taken, I am sure we should arrive 
at wonderful and fabulous figures; but although these 
United States are so rich in grain, mineral, lumber, 
and the different commercial productions, the first 
among which may be placed the raising of cattle, etc., 
yet they are obliged to send to Europe for a part of the 
necessary quantity of eggs to meet the demand, a 
thing almost impossible to believe, yet it is unfortu- 
nately but too true, and I could hardly believe it, until 
I had received it from the Hon. Ed. Youngs, Chief of 
the Bureau of the Government Statistics at Washing- 
ton — several reports, which, unfortunately, are too 
sparsely scattered through the States — and one of 
these reports shows me that there was imported into 
the United States during a period of eleven months 
5,025,958 dozens of eggs, being worth $688,796, and 
during the same time a year later, 5,467,264 dozens, 
and worth $732,234. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 45 

So it can be easily seen that there is no danger of 
overstocking the markets, and I firmly believe that the 
consumers would rather have their eggs fresh than 
coming from Europe, as the voyage would not improve 
their flavor. After having read these figures, one can 
fancy the astonishment of my friends, the readers, 
that so lucrative a business is not more generally fol- 
lowed and better managed. Why poultry does not 
take its place among other industries and occupy that 
rank which it ought to among commercial affairs is, 
that the thing is too simple ; and if I were to tell a 
father with two sons to teach them a trade of some 
sort, he would very likely reply they may be doctors 
or lawyers, and if I were to ask him the question: 
*'Have you any fortune? or, have your sons any dispo- 
sition for those professions?" he would reply: "Not 
much; and I don't know if they are so inclined;" and 
suppose I hazarded the advice: "Have them taught 
the art of raising poultry," I should make that man an 
enemy, and he might ask me if I took him for a mad- 
man. Don't get angry, my friend, I might justly say, 
for it is not every one who can raise poultry with 
profit. Generally every farmer raises some poultry, 
and his wife and children attend to this little affair; he 
must go to the field and tend his corn, etc. ; talk to 
him of these crops, it is all right ; he may have a large 
barn to hold his crops, while he will have some old 
shed, dirty, etc. , for his poultry, and they must hunt 
for their living, or at best, are only fed once a day. If 
you should visit any of the farmers, how seldom do 
you see a pail of water for the fowls? No, the thing 
is very rare and seldom the owner will spend a cent to 
build a fowl house ; he would sooner put his money in 
the bank. Some will invest in railroad bonds that 



46 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

traverse the wilds of this vast country and are fifty 
years before they pay any interest. Is it not so? 
While on the other hand his poultry might bring him 
in two hundred per cent. 

Poultry has always been a source of revenue to the 
French people, as the following figures will prove: 
In France there are about 40,000,000 hens, valued at 
$20,000,000. One-fifth are marketed yearly for the 
table, bringing about $4,000,000; the annual produc- 
tion of chickens, 80,000,000, worth in the city markets 
$24,000,000, and $2,000,000 are added for the extra 
value of capons and fatted hens. The production of 
eggs is estimated at 40,000,000, making the total value 
of eggs, chickens, capons and hens annually sold, 
about $80,000,000, or $2.22 to every man, woman and 
child in France. The power to make much out of 
little, and to live frugally on small means and with 
limited resources to fall back upon, is the distinguish- 
ing trait of the French people and one well worth 
emulating. The eggs imported from France to Eng- 
land in 1874 represented a value of $1,200,000 and 
from Belgium $300,000. 

Formerly our farmers have been wont to crown the 
wheat as king of the agricultural productions ; in the 
South cotton is given that title and in some of the 
southeastern states tobacco is vested with kingly robes. 
But now conditions have changed and the patient, 
unassuming, oft-neglected, but always persistent hen 
has won the commercial race and the right to be 
crowned queen of the wealth producers, for over 
70,000,000 pounds of poultry and almost 36,000,000 
dozen eggs were handled by the transportation com- 
panies during last year, in the state of Missouri alone, 
the aggregate cash returns for which were $8,298,232. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 47 

To more fully realize the importance of this "infant 
industry, ' ' compare its achievements with some others. 

The gross value of Missouri's shipments of poultry 
and eggs exceeded the value of the combined ship- 
ments of wheat, corn, oats and hay during the same 
year. 

Ask any thrifty housewife regarding the value of the 
:iuantity of poultry and eggs used in her family, then 
multiply that amount by the fourteen millions of fam- 
lies in the United States alone, and you will be aston- 
ished by the value of the great poultry industry. 
While some families will use but a small amount, 
many others use a very large amount of choice poultry 
production. 

Their use is a question of advanced civilization and 
mowledge of the hygienic value of foods, as shown by 
:he much greater use of poultry products in larger 
;ities and towns. 

Notwithstanding the enormous quantities of poultry 
raised in the United States, the amount is not enough 
for our consumers of them. The foregoing fact, and 
the more important one that the price for choice 
poultry is now higher than ten years ago, showing 
that the business is not overdone. The value of the 
poultry products in this country always increases, and 
for the year 1895 the value was $343,000,000, taken at 
a value of fowls, 60 cents each, turkeys and ducks, $1. 

Consider for a moment whether these prices are not 
much lower than the families in and near to large 
towns are paying, and you will admit that the total 
^^alue named for 1895 could easily be added one-half 
and still be conservative. It is a well-known fact that 
the demand for choice poultry increases faster than the 
supply. 



48 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

The vSale of Poultry 

Many of our readers are compelled to sell their fowls 
and their eggs, through the medium of a commission 
house, therefore due care should be exercised in the 
selection of the same. In many places thoroughly 
reputable and reliable members of this class of traders 
can always be found, but if the reader is unacquainted 
with any, his local banker may be able to furnish him 
some particulars about the standing of the house, but 
he cannot guarantee whether the house is or is not 
inclined to be tricky, even though the same may have 
a bank account and pay its bills promptly, therefore 
we recommend to our readers to be particular with 
whom they deal. 

'^ As many of these houses will sell the hens and the 
eggs by the pound, the following table may be useful to 
our readers. 

Number of Eggs Needed For a Pound 

Light Brahmas and Partridge Cochins — Eggs, 7 to 
the pound; lay 130 per annum. 

Dark Brahmas — Eggs, 8 to the pound; lay 120 per 
annum. 

Black, White and Buff Cochins—Eggs, 8 to the 
pound; lay 115 per annum. 

Plymouth Rocks — Eggs, 8 to the pound; lay 150 per 
annum. 

Houdans — Eggs, 8 to the pound; lay 150 per 
annum. 

La Fleche — Eggs, 7 to the pound; lay 130 per 
annum. 

Creve Coeurs — Eggs, 8 to the pound; lay 140 per 
annum. 

Black Spanish — Eggs, 7 to the pound; lay 140 per 
annum. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 49 

Leghorns — Eggs, 8 to the pound; lay i6o per 
annum. 

Hamburgs — Eggs, 9 to the pound; lay 150 per 
annum. 

Polish — Eggs, 9 to the pound; lay 125 per annum. 

Dominiques — Eggs, 9 to the pound; lay 135 per 
annum. _ 

Games — Eggs, 9 to the pound; lay 130 per annum. 

Bantams — Eggs, 16 to the pound; lay 90 per annum. 

Commissions Vary Greatly 

When eggs are sent to cold storage usually 35 to 50 
cents per case of 30 doz. is charged for the season of 
six months, or 10 cents per case per month for short 
storage. In warm weather a charge is frequently 
made of 10 cents per case for candling, work which 
must necessarily be repeated in the course of a few 
weeks, unless the eggs are sold in the meantime. 
During the season of candling, the loss through bad 
eggs runs about one-half dozen per case, which would 
be called first-class. 

Public Anxiety 

Hundreds of agricultural societies anxious to see 
their members adopt my plan, begged to exhibit my 
discovery at their annual Fair, I attended forty-five of 
them. 

I was well rewarded for my trouble and the great 
outlay of money, not only for the medals, diplomas, 
and all honors I received, but haying the great satis- 
faction of placing within the reach of thousands of 
poultry breeders and farmers an opportunity to 
increase their income in utilizing- my discovery. 

All the principal journals sent to our Institute a 
reporter who wrote long and minute articles describ- 



60 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

ing my discovery, therefore I was obliged to give more 
permits to visit the Institute and it soon became very 
inconvenient to be incommoded every day by visitors, 
even the Sabbath not being respected, so I was com- 
pelled to strictly limit the time of showing my plan, 
therefore I sent a notice to the newspaper that Tues- 
day only the public would be admitted. 

I sent an invitation to all the fancy breeders, many 
of them came over 200 miles; I decline to repeat the 
flattering compliments they paid to me, but I give in my 
catalogue several extracts taken from very interesting 
articles published by the most reliable newspapers 
well known by the public for being impartial and thor- 
oughly competent to judge of the merits of my discov- 
ery, these articles proved very interesting to the 
public, if I am to judge from the thousands of letters 
politeness required me to answer, and it would require 
a book ten times as large as this to answer all the 
questions that were asked in these communications, 
and hence I am under the necessity of dilating upon 
many matters which to some of my readers may 
appear trivial. The information I have sought to 
convey will, I trust, be eminently practical though 
unadorned by any literary embellishment. 

I think it will not be long before this state of things 
will change, for I find every day that the hatching and 
raising of poultry is receiving serious ameliorations. 
Already many people have adopted my system, not 
only in the United States, but also in Europe from 
where I get orders. The New York Sun some time 
ago had a long editorial in reference to artificial incu- 
bations, and mentioned a gentleman in New Jersey 
who has invested $60,000 in the poultry business. 
The time is not very far distant when the capitalists 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 5l 

will seek to invest their funds in this business, the 
only one where there are no risks to run. Our farm- 
ers also will learn to employ their time in winter, I 
trust, and will find more than enough profit in the sale 
of their spring chickens to pay for the manure they 
will require in the culture of their fields for the ensur- 
ing year, and which I think they will allow is sufficient 
remuneration for the trouble they may have taken. 
The time will come when we shall see signs in all the 
cities, "Chicken Manufactory," and every family which 
has a house will raise its own poultry the same as it 
now makes its bread, butter and cheese. I know of a 
good many countrymen, who, I am sure, will not be 
sorry to give up their pork and beef. 

Many of my readers may be astonished that the 
farmers have not thought of using manure for hatch- 
ing out young chickens, since nearly loo years have 
passed since Reaumur promulgated his discoveries to 
the world. Helas! Yes, it is true, but then you 
know it was such a simple thing and so easy to do 
that no one would bother with it, and especially as no 
one could be found to puff it, and nothing was to be 
made in giving it the publicity it deserved, whilst a 
machine with lamps (there was some chance of mak- 
ing a business of it with enormous profit for the 
maker) received its due amount of brag. 

Chance, however, is sometimes the origin of many 
things, and now and then clears away the clouds that 
lead to fortune. I had just finished my experiments 
when I read in the "Commercial Advertiser" of New 
York, the following: 

Artificial Incubation 

"A lady residing near the Sisters' Hospital keeps a 
half-dozen or more hens, and has been astonished at 



52 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

the strange manner in which a nest full of eggs v;as 
hatched. A quantity of manure had been thrown 
from the stable, and yesterday the children heard 
young chickens in this pile. They at once called the 
attention of their mother to the fact, who, to solve the 
mystery, directed that the heap be pulled down. 
When this was done, a short distance from the surface 
a cavity was discovered in which were nine little 
chicks. The hen had managed to make her nest in 
the heap, and after laying eleven eggs, the opening 
had been closed by the stablemen piling on more of 
the cleanings from the stable. The warmth generated 
in the heap had incubated the eggs, and nine of the 
eleven hatched out. This may be a discovery which 
some one may turn to account." — Paterson Guardian. 

Who First Discovered the Process 
I sincerely hope that all those who have fowls will 
not hesitate to hatch some eggs in manure ; and as I 
am certain they will derive a handsome profit from 
doing so. Before concluding this little work I ask 
permission to give the biography of the Hon. M. de 
Reaumur, who was the first to make this great dis- 
covery. 

Rend Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur was born at La 
Rochelle, France, the 28th of February, 1682. After 
having graduated at Bourges, his fortune allowed him 
to pursue the study of the sciences to which his inquir- 
ing mind led him. The early part of his life was 
given to the useful arts, and it is to him that France 
owes her manufactures of steel and tin. Opaque glass 
was also his invention, but the work that has rendered 
his name immortal is called "Mdmoires pour servir h 
I'historie des insectes, " 6 volumes, 1 734-1 742. 

These memoirs reveal in each page the exact and 
minute details of the caterpillar, moth, butterfly, 
grub, fly and bee. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 53 

He was still employed on his work when he met with 
an accident at his estate of Br^montier, in Maine, 
which hastened his end, and he died October 17 th, 
1757. He had collected a splendid assortment of 
insects which he left to the Academy of Sciences, of 
which he was a member. Reaumur also published 
works upon shells, upon the artificial hatching of eggs 
by heat, and upon the keeping of eggs by means of 
greasing them. 

In 1 731 he constructed a thermometer, to which his 
name still remains. 

The Sort of Manure — How to Use It 
The manure to be used for hatching eggs or raising 
the young chickens must be taken from horses fed 
with grain, (the manure of a horse fed only on grass 
or hay having very little heat in it) and it ought to be 
several days or even a month, in the manure yard, and 
it might be advantageously mixed with that of the 
mule, which contains a great deal of heat; this is not 
actually necessary, but as some of my readers no 
doubt will have mules, especially in the South, I have 
thought it necessary to mention this fact. 

The manure ought to be pure, that it to say, any 
extraneous matter such as old rags must be shaken out 
so that nothing but the fine straw and the dung well 
mixed, is used. That which has lain all the Winter in 
the yard and become frozen and^fuU of snow and ice, 
cannot be used with success unless the sun has melted 
them and the heap has been turned over. That taken 
from the middle of the pile where it is not frozen, may 
of course be utilized. 

For artificial incubation the manure must be handled 
with as much care as a skillful gardener uses in mak- 



54 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

ing a hot bed for his plants, and the building best 
suited to place the apparatus in is one in which the air' 
circulates freely, and without a boarded floor; the 
temperature ought to be as near equal as possible, a 
building covered with glass being consequently 
unsuitable, that is to say that when a heap of manure 
is placed in such a building, the sun shining on it 
increases the heat considerably, while at night the 
temperature is lowered several degrees, thus causing 
endless trouble in regulating it. This difficulty I 
experienced at the Albany Fair where the Agricul- 
tural Society placed at my disposal their splendid 
Floral Hall, built entirely of glass, but I found the 
heat 120 deg. during the day, and hence it became no 
easy matter to maintain my apparatus at the desired 
temperature. The Society therefore erected a special 
building into which I removed my apparatus, this con- 
siderate act of kindness relieving me of all further 
anxiety in this direction. One must therefore have as 
plain a building as possible, for no other heat is 
required than that derived from the heap of manure, 
and that is even more than sufficient, for it will retain 
its temperature for forty or fifty days without varying 
a great deal, and the reader, who wishes to try my 
system, can place in the middle of such a building a 
heap of manure, six feet square, taking the precaution 
of forking it over carefully and handling it as before 
mentioned, being careful not to tread on the manure. 
It ought to be packed closely, but not trodden down, 
and when the heap is eighteen inches deep the hatch- 
ing apparatus is placed in the middle ; a barrel or a 
box of any description will answer, but the wood must 
not be too thick (a flour barrel is as good a thing as 
any) and there must be a cover on it and a system of 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 65 

ventilation arranged to regulate the heat, after which 
it must be carefully covered with manure to make the 
heap square. After two days one ought to have 
about 1 20 deg. of heat, but it would be imprudent to 
place the eggs in the receptacle or box with which one 
wishes to make the experiment either of hatching or 
rearing the chicks, but care must be taken to diminish 
the heat to 100 deg. or 102 deg. ; then the eggs may 
be placed in it and kept at 102 to 105 degs., care being 
taken to '_^take them out every day to cool, and to 
exclude frost from the building, for the sudden change 
from hot to cold would kill the bird in the shell, but 
still they must have air, for air is the life of the chick, 
and consequently if the raiser finds the hatch amounts 
to only five or six out of thirteen or sixteen eggs 
placed under the setting hen, the fault is generally 
from the close setting of the hen, and this malady is 
such that it frequently happens they die on the nest. 

It is therefore necessary that every one who makes 
a business of poultry raising should take the setting 
hen off her nest and feed her or turn the eggs. The 
feeding should not take longer than twenty minutes. 
It being proved that air is indispensable, one must 
therefore give it to the egg while in process of hatch- 
ing, the same as if it were covered by the hen. . Arti- 
ficial hatching is only imitating nature, and therefore 
it is important that whatever nature requires must be 
imitated in the minutest details, no matter how sim- 
ple it appears, for often on what appears to be but a 
trifle, success depends. I cannot too strongly recom- 
mend those who make a business of poultry, to entrust 
to only one person, and that a reliable one, the man- 
agement of the apparatus as well as the care of the 
poultry. No other business more imperatively 



56 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

demands the services of an employ^ in whom implicit 
confidence can be placed. During my residence in 
London I have frequently known capitalists engaged 
in the raising of poultry. I visited one fine establish- 
ment and refused the management of it because it was 
too difficult to oversee the hands employed, and after 
spending more than $200,000 the stockholders with- 
drew. I therefore say to all those who wish to engage 
in the poultry business that they ought especially to 
work themselves, if not, success is impossible, for 
there are a hundred indispensable points, the non- 
observance of which will inevitably entail failure. 

The Best Breed 

9 

I have frequently been asked what breed of hens is 
the best? This question is very difficult to answer, 
from the fact that all depends upon the purpose for 
which they are kept, whether for profit or pleasure. 
To those who keep them only for pleasure I do not 
wish to give any advice, as taste and color are a mere 
matter of fancy, but to those who wish to make money 
out of them I would say that in a warm climate and 
where eggs are the main object, I would prefer the 
Leghorns, as they are good layers but bad setters, and 
even to those who wish to use incubators, the eggs of 
these hens give chickens difficult to fatten, and they 
never weight enough, and as poultry is sold by weight, 
there is nothing to be made by them ; but if, on the 
contrary, it is desired to market them, the White 
Brahmas or Buff Cochins should be selected, which 
give nice chickens, easily raised and readily fattened. 
There are certainly other excellent varieties, but the 
two that I have recommended are my choice, and I 
only state what my long experience has proved. I 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 67 

have had some of every desirable sort, and I am cer- 
tain all the raisers of poultry are of my opinion. 

One of the most essential points is to feed hens with 
the least possible expense, especially where a large 
number is kept ^ this is a very important point, and 
the poultry raiser will do well to keep it steadily in 
view. The farmer who has fifty or sixty hens is satis- 
fied to throw them a few handfuls of corn every day, 
but when one makes a business of it, it becomes a 
much more serious affair. I cannot too strongly 
recommend as food, the refuse from the hotel kitchens 
for laying hens, but it should never be given to the 
young chickens, there being nothing so bad as meat 
for them. I was foolish enought to follow the advice 
in a contrary direction, given in a work, the name of 
which I withhold out of politeness, but I paid dearly 
for it in the loss of an innumerable quantity of chick- 
ens. Meat does not digest quickly enough and cannot 
find a passage as quickly as meal ; the consequence is, 
that after a few days the chickens die. This great 
mortality caused me to make many researches in other 
books; finally I wrote to several newspapers in 
Europe, and one of them sent me the following : 

Diseased Feet in Chickens 

Under the above heading we find in the London 
"Fancier's Gazette" of Nov. 6, a communication from 
M. Leno, an old and somewhat famous breeder of 
chickens, in which he says : 

"During the last twenty-six years I have been 
solicited by near neighbors to unravel if possible, the 
mystery of diseased feet in chickens, which included 
young turkeys, pheasants and poultry. I found the 
toes of many completely eaten off, some crumpled up 
with sores, others with toes turned under the foot, and 
of course many deaths, as they could scarce move 



58 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

about. I made the most careful inquiries of the sev- 
eral individuals as to the food given to them, and in 
every case I found a large quantity of animal food was 
being used. I ordered the meat to be discontinued at 
once, the result of which was that not a single bird 
fell with the disease that had not been fed with the 
meat, proving to my mind that the disease was caused 
through the too liberal use of animal food ; and the 
other cases I inspected were similarly affected to mine. 
"My opinion, founded on long experience as regards 
so-called cramp in young pheasants and poultry, is that 
it is caused by a too bountiful supply of animal food, 
and not by wet ground. I know many game and 
poultry rearers will believe me to be on the wrong 
scent; but when so-called cramp makes its appearance, 
reduce the quantity of animal food and note the result. 
I am not against the use of animal food, for I know, if 
judiciously and sparingly used, it is a very great help; 
but overdo it, and the result will prove very disas- 
trous." 

Infectious Water for Chickens 
Several persons having poultry keep pigeons also. 
This practice is prejudicial to the hens, etc., and as it 
is imprudent not to take every precaution, I will quote 
one case. A resident of Staten Island called upon me 
and requested me to pay a visit to his poultry yard ; 
all his stock, he said, were sick, and the mortality very 
great. I felt it to be my duty to assist him with my 
experience, so I went to his house, which I must say 
was kept in anything but a proper manner, and I found 
he had seven or eight hundred hens of different kinds, 
and very badly chosen were they. After having exam- 
ined thirty or forty of them I told this unfortunate 
breeder to change the water in the drinking fountains. 
He took the water from a cistern and I asked him 
where the water came from that filled it, and he said 
from the roof of the hen house. Now as there were 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 59 

more than one hundred pigeons on it continually, it 
was apparent that every shower of rain washed their 
manure into this cistern, and that the water he gave 
his fowls contained a strong acid and was acting on 
them as a slow poison. I ordered a purgative, pure 
water and to change the food, and the following week 
the sickness had disappeared ; therefore if you keep 
pigeons give the fowls water from a well. 

Condition of Eggs to be Set 
Many persons believe every egg contains a chick, 
those who do so, labor under a great mistake. If I 
wish to offer a friend a pure egg I would give him one 
from a hen fed on corn and from a yard where no 
roosters are kept; but if, on the contrary, I wish to 
hatch them, I would take them from one where there 
were several and which were fed on hotel refuse, espe- 
cially in the Winter season, for then only a few are fit 
for hatching, for two reasons. ist. At that season 
nature is sluggish. 2nd. That the hens remain nearly 
all day on the roost and the roosters have not the same 
chance as when they are running in the yard. Every 
one who has the requisite knowledge to raise poultry 
with profit, takes the precaution to double the number 
of the roosters that run with their hens in winter, and 
every day to drive the hens out of the house to pass a 
few hours in a yard or piece of ground near the poultry 
house, covered in with glass so that the sun may enter. 
In ordinary calculations twice two makes four, except 
in the poultry business, when nearly always twice two 
only make three; that is to say, anyone having one 
hundred hens will find they give them a profit, but if 
they have two hundred they will find generally a loss 
unless well posted in this matter. In keeping hens 



60 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

there is a right way and a wrong one, and very few 
know the right one ; the art of raising poultry with 
profit depends on a number of little things, essential 
points, which put together, lead the raiser either to 
ruin or a fortune, and I hope that my experience will be 
of use to others, for I firmly believe few are disposed 
to make the sacrifice that I have, and the reader will 
find in this little book all that I have been able to col- 
lect in the way of valuable information from the prin- 
cipal breeders and authors, but I don't think any of 
them have been able to discover a way to hinder the 
hen from setting, at least. With my system they set 
only a few days, and this is the rational of the process. 

Hens Setting Only Six Days 

Having always eggs in my apparatus, directly a hen 
wishes to set I give her those taken from the apparatus 
and which in consequence have passed thirteen or fif- 
teen days in incubation by the heat of the manure, 
therefore the hen has only to finish the hatching 
already begun. I then leave her ten days with the 
young chickens. After this time she is put back again 
in the poultry house; hence, instead of losing three 
months of her laying she loses only fifteen days, 
and for those who have a great many hens this is of 
great importance. The chickens are then placed in 
the raising department where there are hundreds of 
young ones of every age. To lead a regiment like 
this to the fields, I placed in the poultry house a 
mother selected for the purpose ; she guarded all my 
ducklings, chickens, young turkeys, every variety of 
breed and color, and nothing was more pleasing than 
to see her, a fine White Brahma walking about with 
four or five hundred little ones, and when she rested 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 61 

one might see her surrounded like a general with his 
staff, and at night she stretched her wings, so ambi- 
tious was she to try and cover them all; but the 
greater number went of themselves under the artificial 
mothers. I therefore advise all those who raise poul- 
try artificially to follow this plan, and if unable to get 
so good a hen, when the chickens are two days in the 
artificial mother, to place two or three young chickens 
a little older with them, and whether they come from 
the mother or the artifical one, these will act as school- 
masters, and will teach them to eat and drink and run 
in the yard. One ought never to let a hen and her 
young ones, or those out of the artificial mother, go 
out until the sun has dried up the dew with which the 
grass is covered every morning. Another point to 
which I would call attention; is the method of dis- 
covering whether an egg is fertilized or not ; people 
generally take the egg to a candle either before or 
after it is placed under the hen ; some place it in a 
bowl of water and say that if it sinks it is impreg- 
nated, and if it swims, it is not. The surest way is this : 

How TO Tell Whether Eggs are Fertilized 

After the eggs have been hatching five or six days 
either under a hen or in an Incubator, take a lamp into 
a darkened room and hold the egg before the light; if 
it is fertilized it will show a small black speck, and in 
turning the egg round with the fingers you will per- 
ceive that it moves. (In about twelve hours can be 
discerned the commencement of organization in the 
gelatinous spot called the germ, which is always in the 
upper part of the yolk whatever the position of the 
egg. At the end of the first day the head and the back 
bone can be distinguished ; at the end of the second 



62 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

the vertebral and the heart ; the third contributes to 
the development of the heart and the breast; the 
fourth to that of the eyes and liver ; on the fifth the 
stomach and kidneys are discernible; the sixth the 
lungs and skin; the seventh the intestines and the 
beak ; the eighth the bladder of the gall and the ver- 
ticles of the brain ; the ninth the wings and legs, and 
on the tenth day all the parts which are necessary to 
complete the bird are in their place, and are developed 
and attain during the following days their proper size.) 
If on the contrary this speck is stationary, that is to 
say stuck to the shell, the chick is dead ; all eggs that 
have not this black speck are clear and still good to 
eat. You can nevertheless assure yourself of this fact 
by breaking two eggs into a cup ; that with the black 
speck will show a little blood, while that without it 
will not have it. This black speck will be much larger 
when the roosters are in good condition. It often 
happens that eggs are left in the hen's nest and conse- 
quently are set upon several days and if these eggs 
are kept a day or two before being placed to hatch, 
this interval is sufficient to kill the chick which has 
already begun to form ; therefore the eggs ought to be 
gathered twice a day from all the nests, care being 
taken not to shake them. Twenty days after being 
laid an egg cannot be put to hatch with any certaint)'- 
of success. The duration of time is the same for 
hatching eggs in an incubator as under the hen, 
thus — hens' eggs take 21 days, geese 32, ducks 28, 
turkeys 29, Guinea hens 27 and pea hens 30. 

A VERY Conservative Result from each Hen 
A savant has said that to eat an egg is like eating an 
unripe fruit, and I am going to try and demonstrate 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 63 

what truth there is in his reasoning. Let us take for 
example the hen ; she lays, we will say, on an average, 
130 G§"i^s annually; she sets on, say 12, and hatches 
out of this number, seven or eight chickens; there 
remains 118 which are not sat upon and in consequence 
have not become flesh to eat, if the raiser has sold 
these eggs at two cents each, it is because he did not 
know how to convert them into chickens. Now let 
us see the difference as a business transaction: If all 
the eggs were turned into chickens instead of being 
sold as eggs at two cents each, it being understood 
that the hen sat upon 12 eggs, we must only place the 
figures upon those that were turned into poultry ; thus 
118 eggs at two cents each give $2.36. Now let us 
suppose them hatched out by means of an incubator; 
there would be about 100 of them that would reach 
the market; allow for cost of feeding them, $10; one 
cannot of course expect that they would all live so we 
will allow 10 per cent for deaths, etc., there still would 
remain 90 chickens at 50 cents, each, making $45.00, 
from which sum we must deduct their value as eggs, 
$2.36, food and labor, etc., another $10.00, making a 
total of $32.36 to be deducted, leaving over $32.00 that 
a hen might be made to make as profit. The reader 
may perhaps be surprised in looking over these fig- 
ures, and perhaps more astonished that we have not a 
larger established poultry business ; but to arrive at 
this it will take a longer time than one would suppose. 
For more than twenty-five years meat might have been 
imported into England, and yet it is only recently 
that a good method of preservation has been discov- 
ered. I really hope that in this century they will 
call us savages for having compelled a hen to set 21 
days on her eggs just to give her 102 deg. of heat; it 



64 HOW T^O MAKE $500 PROFIT 

would certainly be more humane and advantageous 
for the raiser to let her lay~eggs. 

How TO Find out a Rooster's Age 

A poultry breeder knowing his business is aware 
that a hen cannot lay a well fertilized egg if the 
rooster is too young or too old; therefore, fearing to 
loose the sale of same, its owner may hide its age, but 
the reader can find it out by the following calculation ; 
the rooster's owner himself doing the figuring. 

Tell him to put down the month in which the 
rooster was hatched out (for instance, January is the 
first month), then to multiply it by two, then to add 
five to the total, then to multiply it by fifty, then to 
add the rooster's age to the total, then subtract 365, 
if the total would not allow him to do so, the rooster 
is not two years old, but if he can do so, tell him to 
add 115 to the balance and to add it, then ask him to 
tell you the amount he has ; the first figure will give 
you the month in which the rooster was born and the 
last one his age. A good rooster must be between 
two and six years of age. 

During my absence from the Institute, The "Amer- 
ican Agriculturist's" representative visited the estab- 
lishment. In his next issue. No. 354 of its new 
series, this paper gave a truthfully illustrated descrip- 
tion of my apparatus, the reader no doubt will be 
pleased to read the following which is an exact repro- 
duction of what this valuable paper said : 

"Of late years there have been many efforts made to 
perfect a method of artificial incubation, and to get rid 
of the hen, which unfortunately is too fussy and too slow 
for our advanced ideas. Now that poultry bears so 
high a price, and young chickens for broilers are worth 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 65 

more than full-grown fowls, it is very desirable to have 
some way of improving upon the slow and unsatisfac- 
tory methods provided by nature. The most promis- 
ing of all the methods, old or new, with which we 
have become acquainted, is the one here illustrated 
and described. It is the invention of Mr. A. Corbett, 
in which the old-fashioned heating material, horse- 
dung, is used. The apparatus consists of a rounded 
box (Fig, i), made of laths, having a door in the front 
and a movable cover at the top, in which is a ventilat- 
ing flue having a graduated opening closed by a slide. 
This is placed in the center of a pile of horse-manure, 
which raises the necessary heat in a short time. When 
this has occurred, the eggs, arranged in wire sieves or 
frames, are placed in a box, and the cover is put on. 
The heat is carefully regulated by the ventilating 
slide, when shown to be necessary by a thermometer 
laid upon the eggs. 

When the chickens appear, the mother is made ready 
for them, (Fig. 2,) 

This is a box exactly the same as the incubator, but 
provided with a horizontal disk, covered on the under 
side with a piece of sheep-skin from a long-wool sheep, 
and arranged to be moved up and down by a screw. 
The manure is heaped partly around the box, to pro- 
vide the needed warmth, the door is let down for a 
pathway in and out for the chicks, (see Fig. 2) , and in 
this they are placed as soon as ready to be removed 
from the incubator. After having been fed a few 
times the chicks will learn to come out from beneath 
the wool to feed, when the platform is tapped. Mr. 
Corbett has been very successful in using his appa- 
ratus, and when visiting his establishment, we saw the 
proof of his success. 



G6 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 



Fig I. — Professor Corbett's Incubator 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 67 



Fig 2.— Professor Corbett's Artificial Mother 



68 HOV/ TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

To THE Ladies 

The husband generally, is supposed to be the bread 
earner of the family, and I now call your attention 
seriously to the following : 

Every mother is more or less troubled for the future 
welfare of her family, and I would not wish her to lose 
sight of this fact. I have known many families who 
were very comfortable during the husband's life, but 
at his death were placed in straitened circumstances, 
if not in actual poverty. What business can the 
mother follow if she has been the wife of a merchant's 
clerk and able to keep her own servants, but the 
requirements of position have prevented her from 
saving anything, and whenever misfortune comes it is 
necessary to have the means of living and educating 
the children? How much better is it to anticipate 
such a crisis and to begin as soon as possible to have a 
certain income? Engage in the poultry business, and 
when you have sold the first $500 worth your fortune 
is made; for should misfortune arrive all that you 
have to do is to increase the number of your hens. 

However grievous the loss of the husband may be, 
and whenever it may happen, you may be sure he 
would bless you for securing the welfare of his chil- 
dren and driving that gaunt dog, poverty, from the 
door, and even should not death, but commercial pan- 
ics, which are a most frequent cause of misery, cause a 
change of living, your poultry will supply all the 
necessaries of life, and I should be happy if I knew 
that this advice had been followed. 

Already has the example been set in Europe by 
several ladies, who certainly would never require 
assistance from the raising of poultry, and yet are not 
ashamed to acknowledge that they do receive a large 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 69 

profit from this pursuit, and have great pleasure and 
satisfaction in devoting their time and intelligence 
to it. 

. The late Queen Victoria, of England, had a 
splendid poultry house and spent numerous da)'s in 
stitdying with great attention, the different remedies 
for ameliorating the condition of poultry and we are 
indebted to her for the systena of feeding which she has 
pursued for young turkeys, so as to avoid the great 
mortality that takes place when they get the red. 
This receipt has been regarded by those who are 
engaged in turkey raising as a very superior remedy. 
But a long time before some people had presented to 
her Majesty the discovery of this receipt, we had made 
use of it and recommended it already. Further on 
more explanation will be found. 

We find also that the example set by Queen Victoria 
has been" followed in France by the Countess d'4t.lber- 
tas and the lovely Marchioness Bugean de la Tour de 
Pin, Antoine Passy, Cora Millet, Marie la Barriere de 
St. Polen Garret, etc. Madame la Baronne de Leinas, 
widow of an officer without fortune, and his children, 
became immensely wealthy in raising poultry. 

$500 Yearly Profit with Twelve Hens 
I have often been asked, what profit can be realized 
with a few hens, by persons who use my discovery: it 
is very difficult for me to give an exact figure, because 
that depends a great deal upon the aptitude of the per- 
son and the climate where the business is carried on, 
nevertheless, iny long experience enables me to figure 
out what profit twelve hens will bring. 

A two year old hen will lay yearly about 130 eggs, 
making for twelve hens 1,560 eggs now we must deduct 



70 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

10 per cent for eggs not fertilized, leaving 1,404 eggs 
to be hatched. In raising the chicks 10 per cent are to 
be deducted for deaths, which will leave about 1,300 
chickens, which can be sold at 40 cents a head, this 
will leave over $500, not deducting the cost for feeding 
them, which any business person will do at trifling 
expense, and those who can reach the consumers will 
easily sell the spring chickens at 50 cents apiece. 

Receipts to Cook Chicken in Order to Please 
THE Epicurean's Palate 

Stuffing — Moisten a cupful of bread crumbs with a 
teaspoonfiil of melted butter; season highly with salt, 
pepper, thyme. Chestnut stuffing is delicious. Shell 
a quart of French chestnuts. Put them in hot water 
and boil until the skins are softened; then drain off 
the water and remove the skins. Replace the blanched 
/- chestnuts in water and boil until soft. Take out a few 
at a time, and press them through a colander or a 
potato press. They mash more easily when hot. 
Season the mashed chestnuts with a teaspoonful of 
pepper, a teaspoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of 
butter. 

Giblet Sauce — Boil the giblets until tender; chop 
them, but not very fine; add a teaspoonful of flour to 
the pan in which the chicken was roasted; let it 
brown, stirring constantly; add slowly a cupful of 
water in which the giblets were boiled, season with 
salt and pepper; strain and add the chopped giblets; 
serve in a saucebeat. 

Boiled Fowl are Savory. Truss the chicken firmly 
and boil until tender. Take the stock in which it was 
boiled and strain it through cheesecloth. Thicken 
with flour and season. Capers may be added to it if 
desired. Serve the chickens with a border of boiled 
rice or macaroni. 

Fried Chicken — Cut a tender chicken in pieces, dip 
the pieces in water, sprinkle them with salt and pep- 
per, and roll them in flour; saute them in a table- 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 71 

spoonful of butter, browning: both sides ; then remove 
and add to the pan a tablespoonful of flour ; cook it 
for a minute without browning, stirring all the time, 
and add a cupful of milk or cream; stir until it is a 
little thickened ; strain, mix into it a tablespoonful of 
chopped parsley. Place the sauce in the platter and 
arrange the chicken in it. 

Chicken a la Josephine — Clean, stuff and truss a 
pair of chickens, as for roasting. Dredge well with 
salt, pepper and flour. Cut a quarter of a pound of 
pork in slices, and put part on the bottom of the deep 
stewpan, with two slices of carrot and one large onion, 
cut fine. Stir over the fire until they begin to color; 
then put in the chickens and lay the remainder of the 
pork over them. Place the stewpan in a hot oven for 
twenty minutes, then add white stock to half cover the 
chicken, and a bouquet of sweet herbs. Dredge well 
with flour. Cover the pan and return to the oven. 
Baste every fifteen minutes, and after cooking one 
hour, turn over the chickens. Cook, in all, two hours. 
Serve with Hollandaise or with the sauce in which the 
chickens were cooked, it being strained. 

Chicken, Baltimore Style — Split a small young 
chicken down the back, as for broiling; remove the 
breast bone and cut off the pinions. Cut into four 
pieces; dredge with salt and pepper; dip them in egg 
and fresh crumbs. Place them in a pan, and pour 
over each piece enough melted butter to moisten it ; 
then roast in the oven eighteen to twenty minutes. 
Make a cream sauce, taking one cupful of Bechamel 
sauce, and add to it a half-cupful of cream and a half- 
tablespoonful of butter. Pour this sauce on a dish, 
and place the pieces of chicken on it. Garnish with 
crisp bacon and watercress. 

Curry of Chicken — One three-pound chicken, three- 
fourths of a cupful of butter, two large onions, one 
heaping tablespoonful of curry powder, three 
tomatoes, a dash of cayenne, one cupful of milk. Cut 
the onion fine and cook in the butter. Stir all the 
while until brown; then put in the chicken, which has 
been cut in small pieces, the curry, tomatoes, salt, and 



73 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

pepper. Stir well. Cover tightly, and let simmer one 
hour, stirring occasionally; then add the milk. Boil 
up once, and serve with boiled rice. 

Chicken Souffle — One pint of cooked chicken; one 
pint of cream sauce, five eggs, one teaspoonful of 
chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of onion juice, salt, 
pepper. Stir the chicken and seasoning into the boil- 
ing sauce. Cook two minutes. Add the yolk of the 
eggs, well beaten, and set away to cool. When cold, 
add the whites, beaten to a stiff froth. Turn into a 
buttered dish, and bake half an hour. Serve with 
cream sauce. This dish must be served at once. 

Chicken Chartreuse — Mix one cupful of cooked 
chicken minced very fine with one teaspoonful of 
chopped parsley, cne-half teaspoonful of onion juice, 
one-fourth teaspoonful of salt, two tablespoonfuls of 
tomato juice, one beaten egg, a dash of cayenne. 
Grease well a pudding mold; line it one inch thick 
with boiled rice. Fill the center with the chicken 
mixture, and cover the top with rice, so the chicken is 
entirely encased, and the fold is full and even. Cover 
and cook in the steamer for forty minutes. Serve 
with a tomato sauce. 

Chicken loaf may be served for luncheon with a 
crisp salad or for Sunday night supper. Boil a fowl 
until the meat falls from the bones. Strain, and put 
the liquor again in a saucepan; reduce it to one and a 
half pints, and add one quarter box of soaked gelatine. 
Lay a few slices of hard boiled egg on the bottom of a 
plain mold ; fill the mold with alternate layers of white 
and dark meat of the chicken. Season the liquor and 
pour it over the meat in the mold, and set it away to 
harden ; it will become a jelly. 



PRACTICAL RULES ACQUIRED BY TWENTY 
YEARS' EXPERIENCE 

A few rules applied to the management of laying 
hens will insure a full supply of eggs throughout the 
year. But the small number of rules and their sim- 
plicity makes it imperative that they be understood 
and applied. 

Hens require some care and attention. Unless their 
owner is willing to see to his hens he had better not 
have them. 

I. Hens must have comfortable and convenient 
quarters in winter. Most people keep too many hens 
for the accommodations they furnish them. Hens are 
naturally active animals, and when confined in winter 
quarters require plenty of room. Fifty hens and five 
roosters, of all ordinary breeds, should have a house 
24x16 in the clear, and 10 feet high in the clear. 
This will allow about 70 cubic feet of space for each 
fowl, which is little enough. No class of animals is so 
susceptible to the ill effects of crowding as the feath- 
ered class. Hens will not lay when too much crowded, 
nor will they remain healthy long if too many are kept 
together. The building should be well ventilated by 
chimney without admitting any gusts or draughts of 
wind. It should face the south, if possible, and have 
several windows in front. Where the weather gets 
very cold it will be well to have the whole front glazed 
and have a stove inside. Hens cannot lay unless they 
aye kept comfortable, and when the temperature falls 

73 



74 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

to 10 deg-. or lower, they require a little artificial 
heat. This heat must be carefully managed ; a little 
fire only should be kept, and it should be as steady as 
possible. Uniformity of temperature is what is 
wanted. The houses must be kept clean and neat. 
The floors should be swept every day, and be dusted 
over with dry earth, ashes, chaff, short straw, or 
litter of any kind tliat can be easily moved. Every 
hen house should have plenty of suitable roosts. 
There should be a shallow box or bin in one corner — 
a sunny corner is best — containing dry earth, ashes, 
chip-dirt, or a mixture of them, for the hens to wallow 
in. They enjoy their bath in winter as much as in 
summer. Where oyster shells cannot be easily pro- 
cured, there should be a box containing gravel within 
reach of the fowls. A sufficient niimber of nest-boxes 
with glass nest eggs in them, several shallow vessels 
for water, and a feed trough will complete the neces- 
sary outfit for the hen house. A very important 
adjunct to the hen house is an open shed where the 
fowls can stay at pleasure when the weather is not too 
cold. Such a shed should protect the hens from the 
prevailing winds. 

2. When the house with all the necessary fixtures is 
ready for the stock, the next consideration is to have 
the right breed. Almost any breed will do tolerably 
well with proper usage; but there is a great difference 
in the laying qualities of fowls. Under the same con- 
ditions, some breeds will lay twice or thrice as many 
eggs in a given time as others. As a rule, the smaller 
breeds are the best layers; and of the smaller breeds 
the Leghorns are preferable for several reasons: 
They lay a full medium-sized egg, are enormous lay- 
ers, are docile and easily restrained, and have a yellow 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 75 

skin. Of the large breeds the Brahmas are the best 
layers, A cross of Leghorn rooster on light Brahma 
hens will be satisfactory. When one wishes to make 
eggs a specialty, only pullets should be kept for the 
purpose, and the earlier they are hatched the better. 
Don't keep hens over more than three winters unless 
for some good reason. 

3. When the proper accommodations are furnished 
and the proper breeds selected, the next and most 
important step is the feeding. Egg-production is hard 
work for hens, especially for those that are large lay- 
ers. An egg is a highly organized and complex sub- 
stance. It is for the most part composed of albuminous 
matters and oils and fats, together with fibrine, phos- 
phorus, sulphur, iron, etc., in small but appreciable 
quantities. An egg is a potential chicken. The 
hatching process adds nothing to the contents of the 
egg, but only develops the chick from the substance 
already there. Thus, in an egg there is the material 
for bones, flesh, brain, nerves, feeathers, and all the 
organs of life. Hence egg-production, considered 
physiologically, is an exhaustive process, when hens 
lay regularly and constantly. Furthermore, the shells 
of eggs are composed almost exclusively of carbonate 
of lime. When a hen lays freely she requires a supply 
of the raw material from which to secrete this carbon- 
ate, and it should be furnished to her at all times. Is 
it any wonder, then, that hens, as they are ordinarily 
kept, do not lay in winter? Their food must contain 
the materials from which they secrete eggs, or they 
cannot lay. Probably nine -tenths of all the poultry in 
the country is fed on raw, whole corn. We know 
that corn contains all the elementary substances the 
eggs do, but in very much smaller quantities, bulk for 



76 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

bulk, and when a hen has no other food she cannot eat 
enough to afford the materials for an egg a day, or 
every other day. She will get fat and lazy, but cannot 
lay. Hence the necessity for a variety of diet. In 
summer, when at liberty, the hens can find the variety 
of food that suits them, and generally lay well with- 
out much care ; but in winter they can get only what 
is given them, and generally they do not lay. But if 
we know the wants of the hens, and supply them, we 
may have as many eggs in winter as in summer. 
Poultry are large consumers of grass when they can 
get it, and to keep in good health they must have it, 
or its equivalent, in winter. Cabbages or boiled 
vegetables of any kind are good substitutes. Grass, if 
cut green and carefully dried in the shade, when cut 
fine and steeped a while in hot water, is nearly as good 
as green grass, and is eagerly eaten in winter. Besides 
grass, or its equivalent, we must give a supply of 
lime. Oyster shells, when they can be had, are the 
most convenient ; when they cannot be had, ordinary 
stone lime from the kilns will do as well, after it has 
been slaked, but gravel must be supplied with the lat- 
ter form of lime. Domestic poultry must be classed 
among the omnivorous animals. There is nothing 
that can be eaten that a hen will not eat if she can 
have it — any kinds of odds and ends therefore will not 
come amiss — and much refuse matter, that would 
otherwise be wasted, may thus be turned to good 
account. Hens are very large consumers in propor- 
tion to their size, and scanty feeding in winter will not 
do. They should have as much as they want to eat 
and as often as they want it, especially when they are 
laying well. They should be supplied with animal 
food in some form — offal meat, cracklings, chandler's 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 77 

scraps, sour thick milk, etc, will give the necessary 
supply. 

It thus appears that an egg is a complex substance; 
that it is composed of the highest products of secre- 
tion; that egg-production is an exhaustive process to 
the hen ; that to produce them in large quantities we 
must supply the proper variety of diet, and plenty of 
it; and to keep up the health and strength of the hens 
they must have green food and animal food in winter. 

I have made out a bill of fare for my hens, based on 
physiological principles, keeping in view the composi- 
tion of the egg itself and the health and comfort of the 
hen. I will not occupy space in showing why this is 
in accordance with theoretical principles or analytical 
results. I do not claim that it is the best or the only 
way to feed hens, but it has answered so well with me 
that I do not know how to alter it for the better. 

This is how I feed: Their morning feed consists of 
cracked (very coarsely ground) corn, wheat, oats, or 
corn and wheat bran, scalded, and fed warm in a 
trough. This is given them as soon as they can see to 
eat As soon as they are fed I break up a pound of 
oyster shells for thirty-five heads. Then they have 
fresh water from the pump as much as they will drink. 
Fowls often suffer for water in winter. After their 
breakfast I give them about a pound of scraps or 
cracklings from the chandler's shop. This is broken 
in pieces with a hatchet. It furnishes animal food and 
is cheap; I give two or three quarts of thick, sour milk 
every day, with a handful or two of wheat bran stirred 
into it. Besides this, I feed some cabbage, or turnips, 
or potatoes, every day. At noon they have a little 
oats, or corn, as the case -may be, and fresh water 
again, in clean vessels. At night, before roosting 



78 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

time, they get as much whole corn as they will eat, 
and fresh water again. I make it a rule to give as 
much as they will eat. A hungry hen will not be a 
laying hen. 

The greatest regularity should be observed in feed- 
ing and caring for flocks. Have a regular time for all 
the different operations, and the hens will become as 
methodical as their keepers. Eggs should be gathered 
punctually twice a day, or oftener in very cold 
weather. The morning feed should not be made too 
wet, and should not be given too hot. In very cold 
weather it is advisable to put a little cayenne pepper 
and a sprinkle of salt in their morning food. Besides 
the above enumerated ailicles, the hens should have 
all the scraps from the table. They are very fond of 
them, and will turn them to better account than cats 
or dogs will. 

Let us recapitulate. Give your hens a reasonable 
share of your attention; furnish suitable accommoda- 
tions; get and keep the right breed; save only pullets, 
the earliest hatch, for laying. Furnish as great a 
variety of diet as possible, and feed as much as they will 
eat. Give green food and animal food of some sort in 
winter. Keep the hens quiet and comfortable; don't 
allow them to be worried or frightened. Water is as 
important as food, and should be kept clean and fresh. 
These rules, intelligently applied, will secure an abun- 
dant supply of eggs at all times of the year. 

Care of Setting Hens 

Ought hens to set by themselves and apart from 

other setters? This question is one to be answered 

rather from the standpoint of the convenience of the 

breeder than from any other. No doubt hens, if left 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 79 

to suit themselves, will choose a nest in some solitary 
comer ; but the habit is not one that is acquired by 
reason of any advantage to the constitution of the 
chicken, but from a dread of enemies. Tn the case of 
quiet stock, such as the Brahma, there is no need of 
separating the setters, if at all inconvenient for the 
attendant. On the other hand, where many setters 
are together, some extra care is necessary in arranging 
the nests so that every hen will know her own. The 
nests must be scattered widely about the apartment, 
for it will never be found that the hen which should 
occupy a nest in the upper right-hand corner of a room 
has deserted it for one in the lower left-hand corner. 
Also, if the nests look very unlike, the birds will 
observe the distinction. The difference between a 
box open at top and a barrel turned on the side, is 
palpable enough to the dullest setter. In our modern 
fowl houses, where love of order prevails, the nest- 
boxes frequently look as much alike as two peas, and 
in that case wisps of straw or boughs of evergreens 
may be fastened in the immediate vicinity of a nest to 
enable the occupant to know her own. This, of 
course, must be done before the fowl has laid her lay- 
ing out, so that the features of the vicinity may become 
firmly fixed in her "mind," for birds, as well as men, 
have minds. 

The sytem of allowing each setter a separate apart- 
ment has decided advantages in many cases. It is 
always the best plan to follow, when the weather is 
warm enough, to give each setter a yard of her own, 
ten or twelve feet square to exercise in. By watching 
setting hens at feeds, when they have range and oppor- 
tunity to follow their natural bent, it will be seen that 
they run around at a great rate, acting almost like 



80 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

mad, and seem determined to get as much exercise as 
possible in the short time allowed them. In this way 
their bowels are kept in good order. But when set- 
ters, in order to keep laying hens from their nests, are 
confined in very small separate pens, they move 
around slowly, and instead of running and flapping 
their wings, they mope, and after merely satisfying 
their hunger, take to the nest again. Therefore, allow 
each setter as large a yard as can be afforded. If you 
attempt the plan of separate confinement, then you 
will escape the evil of two hens quarreling for the 
same nest; layers cannot drop their eggs in a setter's 
nest, and, at the same time, the incubating hens are 
allowed plenty of exercise. 

Helping Chickens Out of the Shell 
It has been generally supposed that chicks that are 
shell-bound, or too weakly to get out without assist- 
ance, could not be saved, but an accidental discovery 
has put another face on the matter. Keep the egg in 
warm water (about 95 deg.) while the assistance is 
being rendered, and success may be hoped for. The 
shell must be cracked very gently, and the inner mem- 
brane very tenderly peeled off till the chick be at lib- 
erty, keeping all but the beak under water until nearly 
clear. The operation must be performed in a warm 
place, and tenderly, as if touching raw flesh; and it 
will be found that the water genera:lly facilitates mat- 
ters, liberating the membrane if glued to the chick, 
and enabling it to be separated without loss of blood. 
The latter occurrence, nine times out of ten, is fatal ; 
but if the operation be completed without blood flow- 
ing, success may be anticipated and the nearly dead 
chick may be put by the fire in flannel, or under the 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS SV 

hen, if a quiet, good mother — iinder her at night, in 
any case — and next day may probably be as well as the 
others. 

Cooked Food for Poultry 

An important question is the comparative value of 
raw and cooked food. That the latter is not natural 
is not a convincing reason, because to domestic ani- 
mals the word has no application. They are in a 
peculiar condition in many respects, resulting from 
the long-continued influence of domestication. Be- 
sides, there is no objection to departing from the 
ordinary food of any animal, if the substitute can be 
shown to be as easy, or easier, of digestion. In refer- 
ence to this point it must be decided by experiment. 

Now, the experiment has been made over and over 
again. Swine have been fed with raw and cooked 
corn in equal quantities, and the result, tested by 
weighing, is from twenty to forty per cent in favor of 
the cooked article. Some keepers are accustomed, 
with their fowls, to boil a part of the corn in the ker- 
nel, and they do well. However, it must be said that 
they soon tire of it, and cannot be induced to touch it 
if raw corn can be had. The food is also sometimes 
steamed. 

However, sometimes raw food is better. The corn 
may be boiled upon the ear, thus saving the labor of 
shelling it. It is more economical to boil corn in the 
kernel than when ground, as there is saved not only 
cost of gi'inding, but some labor in the cooking proc- 
ess; for mush must be continually stirred, while corn 
in the kernel will not "burn down" if suffered to rest 
on a perforated plate for a few inches from the bottom 
of the kettle. 



■82 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

It is claimed by some chemists that the food value 
of certain articles is increased by cooking, increasing 
the actual amount of nutritious substances in them. 

Another method of softening grains, sometimes 
employed, is fermentation, which turns the starch of 
the grain into sugar, changing it into a substance more 
easily digested. Brewers' grains are much given, but 
should be used only in alternation with whole grain, 
because they are too moist and purge the fowls. They 
are to be recommended in the rather rare cases — 
when costiveness is complained of. 

Keep the Chickens Growing 
It is a mistaken policy to stint young fowls, for rich 
food, and plenty of it is what they need ; there is no 
danger in over-feeding, if they are growing and have 
their liberty. Old fowls that have their growth and 
are shut up, can easily be fed too much, but do not fail 
to feed the young ones all they Avill eat. A good feed 
of whole grain of some kind, just as late in the 
evening as they can see to eat it, is one of the means 
of making fine stock. Also give them a plentiful 
breakfast of soft food early in the morning. Let no 
food lie on the ground, or anything that will sour ; it 
will be very likely to make the little chicks sick. A 
few cents worth of food, given at the proper season to 
a fine bird, may make several dollars difference in the 
price when you come to sell. It takes a certain quan- 
tity of food to teep up the waste of sustaining animal 
life; so every ounce of food properly digested, in 
addition to this actual requirement, goes to increase 
the size of the fowl. Remember this, and never 
neglect the growing stock. Time lost here can never 
be regained. Neglect the little chicks, and you will 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 8:) 

surely see the effects of the neglect in the mature 
fowl. 

Artificial nest eggs may be prepared very simply by 
breaking a small hole in the round end of an ordinary 
egg, removing the contents and filling the shell with 
plaster Paris, sufficiently moistened with water as to 
be easily poured into the shell ; after it hardens, paste 
a piece of white paper over the hole, or the hens will 
peck out the plaster paris and destroy the egg. It is 
easily made and will last a long time. It is advisable 
to always have such nest eggs, and fowls will not 
acquire the habit of eating their eggs ; hens are also 
less liable to wander off and hide their nests when 
plenty of nest eggs are placed in the nests. 

Hens That Eat Eggs 
The best way to break hens of egg- eating is to 
break their necks, and re-stock with birds that have 
not acquired the habit. Fowls that are expert in egg- 
eating first attack the shell with their bill. If it is a 
thin shell a few strokes will break it, and the rest is 
an easy job. If, however, the shell is a thick one, they 
generally fail to break it with their beak ; they then 
begin to scratch in the nest, and with their feet, throw 
the egg against the hard side of the box until it is 
broken. First of all, make hens lay hard-shelled eggs, 
so hard that they cannot be readily broken by a hen's 
bill. This can be done by feeding freely with slaked 
lime, ground or broken bones, 03?-ster shells, etc. To 
prevent breaking against the sides of the box, the 
nests should be high and lined upon the sides with 
cushions filled with hay or other soft material. Their 
only chance then is that they may throw two eggs 
forcibly against each other. To prevent this take the 



84 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

nest egg away and gather the eggs several times a da5\ 
It is a good plan to leave a few China eggs near the 
nest for them to work at, which will make their bills so 
sore that they will strike the real eggs with less force. 

Evening Exercise for Yarded Fowls 
During the summer, when fowls must be shut up on 
account of their roaming propensities, much of the ill 
effects of their imprisonment may be avoided if they 
are let out for a short period at evening. While out 
they may be watched, although there is little danger 
of their going into the garden, and they will find 
enough in the grass-plots to keep them busy. Indeed, 
it is surprising how beneficial this time of exercise is. 
The fowls, knowing that they are to have a chance to 
get out, are much more quiet during the day, and if 
regularity in letting them out and shutting them up be 
observed, they will return to their roosts without 
trouble. It is possible, also, that an hour at evening 
is nearly as good as a whole day, as far as the health 
of the flock is concerned; for, if there is any special 
article of diet needed, they will hunt all the more 
diligently. It is for this reaton that they will prefer 
the grass to the plowed land. By such an arrange- 
ment as this, large flocks can be kept in good condi- 
tion, although shut up through the year. 

Dust Bath 
By instinct all birds are taught the need of a dust or 
water bath for their well-being. They choose a shel- 
tered and sunny spot of fine dry soil, in which they 
open their feathers and fill them with dust, which, 
applied often enough and in sufficient quantities, is 
death to all parasites which infest the plumage or 
skin. As the domestic fowl is not a native of a cold 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 85 

climate, it becomes necessary for us to supply the 
definciency which exists during our winter season. 
This is readily accomplished by the dust box, which 
every one who has fowls should provide. Fine road 
dust, coal ashes, sand, pulverized loam or clay even, 
are all very good, and with a sprinkling of flour of sul- 
phur, constitute as good a bath as can be desired. 
This should be placed in a sunny exposure of tlie 
room and kept dry and clean so that the fowls may 
enjoy its benefits when they choose 

When poultry is kept in a j^ard, it is best to dig up 
a small corner occasionally, to let them hunt for worms 
and beetles, and then sow it with oats, and corn and 
lettuce. They also want a dusting place. A box of 
ashes with sulphur intermixed is what they need for 
this. 

Clipping Wings 

Clipping one wing of fowls to prevent their flying is 
a necessary operation sometimes, but never neces- 
sarily disfiguring. It generally is, however, since the 
farmer's shears almost always makes a clean sweep of 
all the quills, and an ugly wing is the result. Besides 
the ugliness, there are also other disadvantages in such 
a sweeping operation. A setting hen uses the outer end 
of her wing to retain the eggs under her in place, and 
those near the body protect the skin being torn by 
her mate's claws. The proper way is only to trim the 
feathers partly off with a pair of scissors, except about 
one inch at the end. It shows but little when the 
wing is closed, and does not disfigure the fowl, but 
lets the wind through, so as to prevent flying. 

Breeding and Mating 
Too many fanciers and farmers, otherwise earnest 



86 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

in their business, are very careless concerning their 
fowls. Interbreeding certainly degenerates — partic- 
ularly when so promiscously permitted in a flock as is 
common. There are the same good reasons for mak- 
ing choice of the best-bred fowls as for making the 
same choice in other stock. For, while a prime breed is 
as easily reared, fed and housed as a poorer one, there 
is a decided difference in the returns in favor of the 
former. If properly cared for, we do not hesitate to 
say that fowls of superior order do yield the farmer 
even, the largest interest for the outlay he makes, of 
any other stock he keeps. 

Food for Setting Hens 
The requirements of a setter differ from those of 
other hens. By their keeping quiet and without exer- 
cise, not much is required to sustain vitality, and that 
should be of such a nature as to digest slowly. For 
this reason whole grain is preferred, and corn is 
thought to be much the best. Soft food of any kind 
is soon digested, and the hen either leaves her nest 
very frequently or becomes very poor. The advan- 
tage of corn over other grain is that it is more oleag- 
inous and so likely to stimulate the production of eggs, 
and being hard and compact it digests more slowly 
than other grain. A run upon the grass is also bene- 
ficial to setting hens. Meat should be avoided. 

Turnips for Hens 
In order to keep fowls in the best condition, green 
food is always important. With free range in warm 
weather, grass, etc., supplies this need, but in winter 
it must be furnished daily, and nothing is better than 
raw turnips, which can be cut open and fastened -in a 
rack, or chopped fine and fed in a trough. They will 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 87 

leave cabbage and "go for" turnips every time. 
Asiatics seem to consume more green food than the 
smaller breeds. It is even surprising how much they 
will eat of it, if given a full supply. A mixture of 
turnips, apples, and onions, chopped fine, is a savory 
mess. 

The Number of Hens to a Rooster 

Houdans, ten hens to one rooster; Creve-Coeurs, 
eight hens to one rooster; Buff Cochins, ten hens to 
one rooster ; Gray Dorkings, ten hens to one rooster ; 
White Leghorns, fourteen hens to one rooster; Span- 
ish, twelve hens to one rooster ; Brahmas, ten hens to 
one rooster ; Hamburgs, fourteen hens to one rooster ; 
Polands, twelve hens to one rooster; Game, ten hens 
to one rooster. With this proportion of hens to a 
rooster the vitality of the eggs will prove good, if the 
rooster is from 2 to 6 years of age. 
Poultry Manure 

Poultry manure, or hen guano, is worth, if kept 
under cover, almost as much in price as Pacific guano, 
which is selling at $60 per ton. Hen manure, on the 
garden or farm, is worth $50 per ton. To prepare it 
for use, mix it with soil, half and half; keep it until 
wanted. For corn, onions, and all vegetables, it is 
one of the best manures. No farmer, who wants to 
make his farm pay, should sell it for twenty cents a 
bushel. It is worth a dollar for his own use. 
Keeping Eggs for Winter Use 

To four gallons of boiling water add half a peck of 
new lime, stirring it some little time. When cold 
remove any hard lumps with a coarse sieve; add ten 
ounces of salt and three ounces of cream of tartar, and 
mix the whole thoroughly. The mixture is then to 



88 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

stand for a fortnight before using. After immersing 
the eggs pack them as closely as possible. Thus 
treated, if put in when newly laid, at nine months 
they will eat nearly as good as though laid only six 
days, though of course not like new-laid. 

A better but a little more expensive way of preserv- 
ing eggs is recommended by the French. In eight 
ounces of warm olive oil dissolve four ounces of bees- 
wax; with this mixture anoint the egg all round, 
using the tips of the fingers or a rag. The oil will be 
absorbed by the shell and the pores filled up by the 
wax, and if kept in a cool place, the eggs after two 
years will be as good as if fresh. 

Gravel for Fowls 
Granivorous fowls need the assistance of hard sub- 
stances, such as stones, gravel etc. , to digest the food 
upon which they live. This they are able to obtain for 
themselves, in most localities, at all seasons except in 
winter, or when confined in limited quarters. At 
such times they must be supplied with a liberal quan- 
tity of clean, sharp gravel or coarse sand. Young 
fowls of all kinds should have fine gravel or coarse 
sand constantly within their reach, of a size adapted 
to the capacity of their throats. 

How TO Fatten and Dress Poultry for 

THE Market 

Although the manner of fattening poultry may seem 

plain, yet there is, nevertheless, a right and a wrong 

way, a long and a short mode of accomplishing the 

object desired. 

Never let poultry forage and shift for themselves 
for at least ten days before killing, for they are apt to 
range in the barn-yards and pick up filthy food, which 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 89 

permeates all through the bird, its flesh frequently 
becoming so tainted, that it is unfit to be eaten. 

The best method for steady and regular profit, or for 
domestic use, is to keep them constantl)' in high feed 
from the beginning, with plenty of clean, cool water; 
then they are always ready for the table, with but very 
little extra attention, their flesh will be juicier and 
richer in flavor than those fattened from a low and 
emaciated state, always commanding quick sale, at the 
highest price in the market, a healthful, nourishing 
and restorative food. 

Some "cram" their poultry before killing, to make 
it appear heavy; this is a most injudicious plan, as it 
shows at a glance the dishonest intention of the shipper 
to benefit himself and swindle others, in his poor effort 
to obtain the price of poultry, for corn ; the undigested 
food soon enters into fermentation, and putrefaction 
takes place, injuring their sale a great deal more 
than is gained in weight. Fowls should alwaj'-s be 
allowed to remain in their coops at least twenty-four 
hours previous to being killed, without food, then they 
will keep longer, and present a better appearance. 

The best food for fattening fowls, old or young, is 
barley meal, or mixed with equal quantities of corn 
meal, cooked, and fed warm (a small quantity of brick 
dust in their drinking water is recommended), which 
will make flesh faster, and more solid, giving it a fin© 
golden color after being dressed. Good food is posi- 
tive economy. 

The best mode for killing poultry, as it causes 
instant death without pain or disfigurement, is to 
suspend the birds by tying their legs firmly to a pole 
or heavy wire across the killing room, a convenient 
distance from the floor, and opening the fowl's beak. 



90 HOW TO MAKE ;|5oo PROFIT 

and with a sharp-pointed and narrow-bladed knife, 
make an incision at the back of the roof, which will 
divide the vertebrae and cause immediate death. 

Dry-pluck the feathers and pin-feathers all off neat 
and clean, while warm, without breaking the skin; 
then plunge it into a kettle of very hot water, holding 
it there only long enough for the bird to "plump," 
then hang it up — turke5^s and chickens by the legs, 
and ducks and geese by the heads. Do not remove 
the entrails, heads or feet. This mode gives the 
poultry a nice buttery, golden color, that attracts the 
eye of the epicure. 

Pack only when thoroughly dry and cold (not frozen) 
in medium sized, clean boxes or barrels, in thoroughly 
cleaned and dusted rye straw, and to be extra nice, 
wrap each bird in clean, white (not printed) paper, 
fold the head under its body, legs stretched out, lay 
in the left hand corner, with its head toward the end 
of the box, back up, fill the first row, then commence 
the second in the same way, only let the bird's head 
pass up between the rumps of the two adjoining ones ; 
this makes it solid; the last row reverse the order, 
placing the head towards the end of the box, letting 
the feet pass under each other, should there be space 
between these rows wide enough to lay in a few side- 
wise, do so; if not, fill in tight with straw, so the 
poultry cannot move. This gives uniformity of 
appearance and a firmness that will prevent moving 
or chafing during transportation ; over this layer place 
straw enough to prevent one layer from coming in 
contact with the other, and add other layers until the 
box is filled full. Great care must be taken in pack- 
ing not to break the skin, for during transportation 
cmMt piqpoc t:urn black and injure its sale* 



DISEASES AND THEIR CURE 

Usually, when fowls take cold, inflammation of the 
head and eyes is one of the first symptoms to attract 
attention. If allowed to suffer from neglect and con- 
tinued exposure, the trouble speedily runs into what is 
termed roup, or swelled head, and is often accom- 
panied with canker or ulcerated sore throat. In the 
last-mentioned condition rattling in the throat often 
occurs. 

Fowls are, however, sometimes troubled with diffi- 
culty in breathing and a rattling in the throat, as the 
result of atmospheric changes, and in such"' cases the 
affectation is similar to bronchitis. While not consid- 
ered very dangerous, there seems as yet to be no cer- 
tain cure for it,. and since it is contagious, we seldom 
give it much attention. The rattling, or gaping or 
wheezing, which comes from cankered throat and 
mouth, is a very different things, and should be 
looked after immediately. 

A breeder whose fowls are evidently suffering from 
the results of colds, writes thus: *' My chickens are 
afflicted with a blindness and inflammation of the 
eyes. The eyes close up and there is a rattling in the 
throat part of the time when they breathe. What is 
the disease, and what is the remedy?" 

The blindness and inflammation of the eyes can 
generally be easily cured if attended to promptly. 
The "Fancier's Gazette" of England, recommends to 
bathe the head and eyes with a solution of sulphate of 
zinc, five grains to the ounce of water. Chlorinated 

91 



«2 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

soda, which you can get at any good chemist's, is also 
suggested. Carbolic acid, one part acid to forty parts 
water, is another remedy often mentioned, and acetic 
acid is likewise highly spoken of. 

A general observation and experience in the treat- 
ment of such cases is that diluted vinegar and common 
salt water combined make the best and most readily 
procured remedy we have met with. Chlorinated soda 
and acetic acid are only learned names for substances, 
the properties of which we have in as available a form 
in the simple and well-known articles of common salt 
and vinegar. 

In a case of inflammation, as above mentioned, the 
head and eyes should be bathed several times each day 
with the solution of salt and vinegar. Open the 
mouth and you will most likely find a yellowish, cheesy 
substance in the slit in the roof of the mouth. This 
should be carefully removed with a quill or pointed 
stick. A flat piece of good hickory, four inches long 
and one-fourth of an inch wide, and as thick as a case 
knife, roundly pointed at one end, makes a good 
instrument for such work. If the cheesy matter has 
not yet formed in the head, you will at least find in the 
roof of the mouth a slimy discharge, similar to that 
which comes from the nostrils of the bird. This 
should be removed, as well as possible, with a sponge 
or soft rag. Then tie to the end of a small stick a 
piece of sponge saturated with the salt water and 
vinegar, and with this sponge out the mouth well, and 
force some of the wash through the slit in the roof of 
the mouth. It is convenient to have for this purpose 
a small syringe with a bent tube. The face and nos- 
trils should also be well bathed with the salt and 
vinegar, and, no harm need be feared from getting 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 93 

the wash into the eyes. This will be a benefit rather 
than an injury. 

The diet of the fowl should be soft food. Soaked 
bread is good, seasoned with pepper. In the drinking 
water should be dissolved a little sulphate of iron. 
Stimulating foods and tonic drinks are of great bene- 
fit in such cases. If no more serious symptoms 
appear, your bird may be expected to recover in a 
short time. 

Cankered throat may accompany a severe cold as 
well as roup in its worst stages. If on opening the 
mouth of a bird you find it badly coated or ulcerated, 
the tongue covered, and the ulcers extending down 
the throat, you had better give the case up as hope- 
less. If the ulcers appear only in small spots and 
streaks, and the tongue is clean, or nearly so, it is 
worth while to attempt a cure, provided the bird is 
worth the extra daily attention it will require. The 
course to be pursued is to take a stick, such as that above 
described, wet it well with the salt water and vinegar 
— the solution for this purpose may be as strong as it 
can be made — and then proceed to remove with the 
point all the ulcers from the roof and sides of the 
mouth and about the base of the tongue ; in fact, all 
you find. Do not be uneasy about the bleeding, as no 
harm will come of it, but rather good. Wet the stick 
frequently with the salt water and vinegar, in order 
that as fast as the ulcers are removed the solution 
may immediately come to the exposed parts, thus caus- 
ing them to heal and preventing the spread of the 
disease. Having carefully done all you can at one 
time in this wa)', give the inside of the mouth a good 
sponging with the wash, and if the fowl seems to 
require food, but is unable from the soreness of its 



9i HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

mouth to take it, some should be forced down its 
throat. The like course should be gone through with 
the next day, and the following, until the ulcers are 
entirely killed out and removed. In the meantime the 
fowl should be given easily-digested and stimulating 
food and tonic drink, as above recommended. 

In some cases small postules appear on the sides of 
the head and the wattles and the ear lobes. The salt 
and vinegar will be found to be a good remedy for 
these alvSo. Remove the scales and bathe the parts 
freely with the solution, repeating the operation once 
or twice each day. W,tiat is commonly termed swelled 
head is but an advanced stage of roup. The secretions 
seem to concentrate, settle and consolidate, as it were, 
at some one point, frequently on the face beneath the 
eye, yet seldom so deeply seated but that the accumu- 
lations may be reached and easily removed with the 
knife. Sometimes a mass of yellow, cheesy matter, as 
large as a thimble, will have formed at one place. It 
should be taken out, and the wound bathed with salt 
and vinegar. Nature will soon heal over the frightful 
looking cut if the work of cleansing has been well done. 

About thirty per cent of hens are lost annually by 
diseases of every kind, so that I think a few simple 
remedies for some ot the most common will be appre- 
ciated by my readers, and I therefore give them with- 
out farther explanation, under their most common 
names, as quoted by fanc}'' breeders. These receipts 
have been taken from the most trustworthy books and 
journals, and are known to the breeders as reliable. 

Abortion 
Generally produced by fright. The remedy is to 
confine the bird in a rather dark pen, with a nest in 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 95 

one corner Soft food only should be used, given 
spanngly. The drinking water should be impregLed 
with a small amount of carbonate of soda. This 
disease must not be confounded with the ordinary lay. 
ing of soft eggs, ■' ■' 

Apoplexy or Paralysis 

otherT, '"'"''^ A^ ""''"^ ^™'" '*'«'» f^^*"S '"an any 
other cause An unsteady walk, with drooping wings 
as If the bird were giddy, is a warning S3 mpton ' 
Fasting and a dose of fifteen grains of jafap and one 
grain o calomel will be found very use ul, with con 
tinned low diet for two or three days, in cases of 
sudden attacks, with loss of power and consciornest 
n will be necessary to lance immediately the large 
vein under the wing, and to bleed freely until the bifd 

alum or other styptic, and take care that the fowl is 
not allowed to peck open the wound and cause death 
from hemorrhage. Cold water applied to the head is 

a Llof'f "' '""'■ P-'unately these diseases 
aie both of infrequent occurrence. 

Black Rot 
Also rarely to be met with, and only to be cured in 
the earlier stages. Symptoms-blackening of the 
wiiwrad T^^-^.«^^^^^^^-nd feet, accompanied 
with giadual emaciation. Treatment is a dose of 
calomel or castor oil, with warm and nourishing diet 
together with the use of 'Tarrish's Chenncal Food ' 
01 Tonic No. 4. ' 

Bronchitis 

bv^d'lCr ^^ '^^^^•^q^^"t ^«^.?hing, unaccompanied 
by discharge, as in the case of cold in the head A 
small quantity of nitric and sulphuric acids in the 



96 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

drinking water, with sugar enough to make the whole 
slightly sweet and acid to the taste, is all that is 
required. The food may be seasoned with a little 
cayenne or ginger, and the fowl should be kept in a 
dry place, moderately warm. Sometimes the disease 
is accompanied by a peculiar rattling in the throat. 
The homoeopathic cure is two pellets of aconite in the 
morning before feeding, and the same in the evening, 
for two or three days. This is said to be a specific. 

Bumble Foot 
A corn or abscess at the bottom of the foot, most 
frequently found in the larger breeds, and is supposed 
to be caused by descent from the perches to a hard 
board floor. Daily applications of lunar caustic, or 
pigment of iodine, painted over the spot with a brush, 
will often effect a cure. The tumor should aferwards 
be cut and the matter pressed out, the part thoroughly 
cleansed with warm water, and in day or two the 
caustic applied as before. One ounce of muriate of 
ammonia, dissolved in a pint of vinegar, is very useful 
in reducing the swelling. The bird should be com- 
pelled to sleep on straw during treatment. Another 
remedy is to wash the foot with tepid water and soap, 
afterwards cutting open the swollen foot and removing 
the putrid and diseased surface flesh, and applying 
sulphate of copper (blue vitriol), and then tying up the 
foot so as to retain the medicine as applied. In severe 
cases two or three applications may be necessary. 

Canker or Ulceration 
This disease bears a striking analogy to the roup, 
but is distinguishable from the latter by a lack of dis- 
charge from the nostril. It frequently extends to the 
throat, covering the back of the tongue with ulcerous 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 97 

formation. In such cases remove the ulcers with a 
sharp, flat stick of hard wood, and apply with a cam- 
el' s-hair brush a wash of tincture of myrrh, borax and 
chlorate of potash, dissolved in water. Use powdered 
borax afterwards upon the sore. Give soft food, and 
occasionally bread soaked in ale. When the disease 
affects the eye, use McDougall's Fluid Extract for a 
wash, in the proportion of one teaspoonful to eight of 
water. As . in the case of roup, the diseased fowl 
should be removed to warm, dry quarters, and the 
feathers on the neck and head kept clean by washing 
in warm water. Another remedy is to dissolve some 
alum in water and wash out the mouth, throat and 
eyes with it, after which sprinkle burnt alum on the 
sores ; to be repeated daily until cured. 

Cancer 

The first symptoms are loss of the use of the legs, 
the bird squatting about on its hocks, and using its 
wings to assist locomotion. There is no apparent loss 
of appetite or energy, but absolute loss of power over 
the legs. The disease is incurable, as removal of the 
cancer by a surgical operation only results fatally in a 
week or so thereafter. When it is apparent that the 
disease has become seated, the most humane treatment 
for the breeder is to kill it. • 

Cholera 

If there is a disease among fowl resulting more par- 
ticularly from carelessness or ignorance than any 
other, it is the fatal disease known as the cholera. All 
writers on the subject agree that it arises from expos- 
ure to the sun, without sufficient shade, warm and 
stale drinking water, foul and offensive grass runs 



98 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

occasioned by the droppings, and, most important of 
all, the absence of a regular supply of fresh green 
food, which is the great preventive of diarrhoea in 
fowls. This disease is rarely if ever known where a 
cool shade, clean runs, fresh cool water and green food 
are provided daily. 

Symptoms — Sudden and violent thirst, diarrhoea, 
greenish droppings, afterwards thin and whitish, with 
extreme weakness and staggering or "falling about," 
sometimes accompanied with cramps, and often with 
an "anxious" look about the face. Death results in 
from twelve to thirty-six hours. 

Treatment — Administer every three hours the fol- 
lowing: Rhubarb, 5 grains; cayenne pepper, 2 grains; 
laudanum, 10 drops. Give midway between each dose 
a teaspoonful of brandy, diluted with water containing 
5 drops of McDougall's Fluid Extract, or either of the 
following: 

No. I — Equal parts of the tincture of opium, red pep- 
per, rhubarb, peppermint and camphor, well shaken, 
with doses increased from ten to twenty drops several 
times a day when not immediately relieved. 

No. 2 — Two oz. each of alum, resin, copperas, lac 
sulphur and cayenne pepper, pulverize, then mix three 
tablespoonfuls of the powder with one quart of corn 
meal, and dampen for use. This is sufficient for 
twelve fowls, and may be used either as a preventive 
or cure. For the former, once or twice a week is 
sufficient. Rye or wheat, soaked well in high wines 
or strong whisky, fed occasionally, is also said to be a 
good preventive. 

No. 3 — Blue mass and cayenne pepper, each 1 oz, ; 
camphor gum ^ oz., and a teaspoonful of laudanum, 
well mixed and made into pills of ordinary size. Give 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 99 

one pill every hour until the purging ceases. Also a 
teaspoonful of brandy morning and evening. 

No. 4 — Cayenne pepper and prepared chalk, each 2 
parts; pulverized gentian and pulverized charcoal 
each I part (measurement, not weight) ; mix well 
together and form a paste, with either lard or sheep's 
suet. Give a pill the size of a common marble once a 
day, and keep in a warm and dry place forty-eight 
hours. 

No, 5 — Carbolic acid, i drachm; glycerine, i oz. ; 
mix thorougly, adding one quart of water. Of this 
solution use two tablespoonfuls to a gallon of water, 
allowing the fowl access to no other water. The 
fountains and feed boxes should be disinfected with 
carbolatc of lime or carbolic acid. The water must be 
kept cool, plenty of shade provided, and the free use of 
green food indulged in, for those not attacked. No 
food or water with the exception of soft or moistened 
wheat bread in warm milk is needed for the diseased 
birds. 

The ^use of kerosene in this disease has lately 
attracted some attention, and elsewhere we present a 
newspaper article on the curative qualities of this oil. 
It is said to be very efficacious. 

Catarrh 

A common cold, if neglected, is likely to terminate 
in roup. The bird should be immediately removed to 
a warm place. Three drops of mother tincture of 
aconite added to half a pint of the drinking water will 
be found beneficial. The food should be soft, mixed 
warm, and seasoned with Tonic No. i. 

One pill of the following, given night and morning, 
is highly recommended: ^ oz, each of camphor, 

LefC. 



100 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

valerian, cayenne pepper, lobelia, seed powder, and 
gum m)'rrh, made into forty-eight pills. If not better 
in a few days roup may be suspected, and the treat- 
ment should be the same as for that disease. 

Consumption 

Caused by cold or dampness, want of light and con- 
stitutional debility. Most frequently observed in birds 
related. The symptoms are chronic cough, with wast- 
ing away and loss of strength. Incurable when once 
fairly seated. Where its presence is suspected, cod 
liver oil added to the meal food is a corrective, together 
with "Parrish's Chemical Food," half a teaspoonful 
twice a day 

Cramp 

Early chickens are most subject to this diease caused 
by exposure to damp during cold weather. It may be 
known by a tendency to walk on the toes, and after- 
wards to walk on the knuckles or outside of the foot. 
Also by squatting on the hock. Removal to a place 
provided with a dry boarded floor, well sanded, and 
kept clean, is usually sufficient. In several cases, 
where the toes are much contracted, the legs and feet 
should be bathed in warm water several times daily, 
opening and extending the toes, and afterwards drying 
them with a cloth. A little tonic should be added to 
food. Opium in quarter grain doses two or three times 
daily will prove beneficial in the treatment of this 
disease. 

Crop Bound 

Occasioned by careless feeding with hard grain or 
pieces of tough meat, bone, or other substance too 
large for the bird to swallow, causing the crop to be so 
distended and swelled as to close the outlet to the 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 101 

stomach. Warm water should be poured down the 
throat, and the crop gently kneaded or worked for an 
hour, if necessary, until it becomes soft, holding the 
bill open and the head down. Then give a tablespoon- 
ful of castor oil and feed sparingly for several days to 
prevent a permanent distention. If this is not effec- 
tive an incision about an inch long should be made at 
the top of the crop, first removing some of the feathers 
and care being taken not to open any of the large blood 
vessels. The contents of the crop should then be 
removed and the outlet examined to see that it is not 
stopped up. The incision may be closed by making 
three or four stitches with silk or horse-hair in the 
mner skin, and the same in the outer. Be careful not 
to sew the two skins together, as it is almost certainly 
fatal. Feed on soft or sopped bread, and allow no 
water for twenty-four hours after the operation. 

Soft Crop or Swelled 
Usually caused by excessive drinking, and the con- 
tents of the crop are of a soft, fluid character. Con- 
fine the bird separately, and feed sparingly with soft 
food, thoroughly cooked. The water should be 
slightly acidulated with nitric acid, of which the bird 
should be allowed to drink very moderately aft-r each 
meal only. The food should be seasoned with Tonic 
No. 4, and half a teaspoonful of sal volatile o-iven 
every morning, in double the quantity of water 
Chopped onions or garlic is the best green food during 
treatment, having themselves a strong remedial effect 
It IS to be very much doubted whether the distended 
crop resulting from negligence in feeding after treat- 
ment for "crop bound" can ever be successfully 
removed. The two disfigurements being similar in 



102 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

appearance, are apt to be confounded. The one 
resulting from excessive drinking is properly a disease 
not so fatal as the hard crop, but nevertheless suffi- 
ciently dangerous to excite apprehension, while the 
other, beyond being unsightly, causes little injury to 
the bird. 

Dysentery 

This disease is really chronic diarrhoea, the drop- 
pings being mingled with blood. Rarely cured, and 
evidently contagious. The diseased birds should be 
removed to a cool place and the cholera remedy 
applied. Five drops of laudanum and five drops of 
"McDougall's Fluid Extract," every three hours, has 
also proved to be efficacious. A teaspoonful of strong 
cinnamon tea every hour should be given instead of 
water. The carcass, in case of death, should be buried 
deeply, away from the yards, and the latter should be 
thoroughly disinfected. 

Debility 

Sudden terror or prostration from a long journey 
and excitement attendant on exhibition, often occa- 
sions fowls to droop without any apparent positive 
disease. In such cases nothing is better for restoring 
strength than a raw fresh laid egg daily. Strong 
tonics are not advisable, but the usual modicum of the 
"Douglas Mixture" given every third day in the drink 
will prove an invaluable aid. 

DiARRHCEA 

Is usually caused by too sudden changes of food, 
and sometimes th^e weather. In its earliest stages it 
may easily be checked by feeding soft food cooked 
with milk and mixed with chalk or seasoned with pul- 
verized cinnamon, or by giving camphorated spirits, 
or water, every four to six hours, in doses of 10 to 20 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 103 

drops according to severity, and feed nothing green 
except it be fresh grass, in limited quantities. Teget- 
meier's recipe, given years ago, has had some favor, 
viz. : 5 grains chalk, 5 grains rhubarb, and 3 grains of 
cayenne pepper made into pills. But if the case is 
one of severity one teaspoonf ul of laudanum every six 
hours should be given until relieved. With proper 
and judicious feeding, plenty of fresh water, cleanli- 
ness and a plentiful supply of lime, oyster shells, or 
broken or ground bones, and a free use of the "Doug- 
las Mixture," there need be but little fear of any 
serious results. 

Egg Bound 
Inability to lay on account of unusual size of egg, 
may be known by the hen coming off the nest and 
moping round in evident distress, with wings on the 
ground ; sometimes she remains on the nest. A large 
dose of castor oil will generally give relief in a few 
hours. Failing in this a free injection of olive oil into 
the oviduct may be used, care being taken not to break 
the egg. If no syringe is at hand the oil may be 
passed up with a feather, having first bathed the vent 
with warm water. The food should be soft and not 
of a stimulating nature. In case the egg passage 
should protrude or become ruptured, egg production 
should be totally arrested by giving the following: 
One grain calomel, one-twelfth grain of tartar emetic 
and one-fourth grain of opium, made into a pill, and 
administered every four hours. In the first pill the 
quatity of calomel and opium may be doubled. \ 

Elephantiasis or Scaly Legs 
A rough scurf on the legs and toes of a horny sub- 
stance resembling scales. Not dangerous but very un- 



104 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

sightly, and some strains are more predisposed to this 
disease than others. It is considered by some to be 
also slightly contagious. Different opinions exist as to 
its origin, but the treatment is simple and effective. 
The diseased fowl should be provided with a dry and 
moderately warm shelter, and a vigorous scrubbing 
with soap and warm water, with a hard brush, will 
remove a great deal of the scuff. Then anoint the 
affected parts with sulphur and lard, and give half a 
teaspoonful of powdered sulphur internally. The wash- 
ing and anointing must be continued daily until a cure 
is effected. Three or four applications daily of kerosene 
oil is also recommended as a wash, and the slackened 
scales removed with a blunt knife, after which anoint 
as above. A weak solution of the sugar of lead is also 
an excellent wash to be used in the morning, followed 
in the evening by an application of lard, mixed with 
ointment of creosote. It is desirable that the yards 
should be clean and free from mud, and the fowl kept 
from exposure to wet or damp of any kind. 

Eruptions 
A whitish scurf or efflorescence causing the loss of 
feathers, as far as it extends, generally results from 
lack of green food. This must be supplied and clean- 
liness attended to. The diseased parts should be 
dressed with tar and sulphur ointment, or a compound 
of cocoanut oil, one ounce, and powdered tumeric 
quarter of an ounce. A dose of castor oil followed by 
a teaspoonful of powdered sulphur daily in the food 
for ten days, should also be given. If the sulphur 
should tend to make the fowl scratch or irritate the 
head before a cure is effected, the parts should be 
dressed for a few days with McDougall's Fluid 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 105 

Extract, diluted with three parts of water. As this 
affection is contagious, it is necessary to isolate the 
affected fowl. 

Feather Eating 

This unnatural appetite, generally observed in the 
hen, is a source of great annoyance. It is probably 
the result of thirst, and also a want of exercise conse- 
quent upon close confinement. There seems to be no 
specific for this disgusting practice, as remedies which 
have cured in one instance have utterly failed in 
another. Indeed, it may be a question whether the 
cures which have supposed to result from the giving 
of remedies, have not rather been a natural withdraw- 
ing of the disease itself than otherwise. External 
application would seem to be necessary in order to 
nauseate the unnatural appetite of the birds. The 
stumps of feathers should be extracted, and all the 
parts attached anointed with a stiff lather of carbolic 
soap. To give the birds occupation it is advisable to 
bury corn in the ground, or hang up a cabbage or let- 
tuce by a string just within reach of the birds. A 
bran and linseed mash twice a week has been known 
to produce good effects. One-fourth of a grain of 
acotate of morphia daily, with a grain of calomel twice 
a week in addition is a good sedative. The drinking 
water should contain enough carbonate of potash to 
give it a decided alkaline taste. Raw bones crushed 
small have been known to effect a cure, and a sheaf of 
corn fodder thrown in the yards is said to be beneficial. 
It would be advisable to seclude a fowl which mani- 
fests a wicked desire for this habit imtil the appetite 
becomes more natural from forgetfulness. 

The Poultry Bulletin says: From close observation, 
we very much doubt if it is the soft, bloody end of the 



105 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

feather that is craved for, but the light, webby por- 
tion. In all cases we find the crop filled with this 
portion of the feather, and we have a number of times 
checked the trouble by giving the fowls a supply of 
finely cut rowen grass or hay. Where fowls have a 
run on grass, winter and summer, they do not indulge 
in this troublesome habit, even if they have no animal 
food at all; but confine them to a yard or house, no 
matter how large, if there be no grass or hay within 
reach, the trouble soon commences. 

Another writer gives a rather novel method by 
which an incorrigible Patridge Cochin Cockerel was 
inadvertently cured. After giving him up as incur- 
able, he put him in a run with twenty or more cocker- 
els weeded out for killing. Instead of submitting to 
his cannibal tastes, however, these strangers made it 
rather uncomfortable for him, and to use an express- 
ive Westernism, caused him to "gyrate round the 
yard like a Chinese joss with the jim-jams," uttering 
doleful cries. He was completely cured, and never 
afterwards offered the first indignity to his hens. 
Perhaps, after all, a good thrashing like the above 
might prove a sovereign specific for this offensive 
habit. 

Frost Bites 

Large combed breeds especially suffer from having 
combs and wattles affected by frost. By oiling them 
with a sponge every morning, this may be prevented. 
The best treatment of frost bite is a vigorous applica- 
tion of snow or very cold water, afterwards applying 
glycerine. Painting the frozen part with compound 
tincture of myrrh three times a day is said to be bene- 
ficial. Turpentine is also recommended. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 107 

Fledging 
When the weather is bad and the chicks appear to 
be suffering much, the food may be seasoned with No. 
3 tonic, and the addition of tincture of iron to the 
water. Warm milk should also be given to drink. 

Fractures 
A broken shank may be "set" without difficulty, 
and secured with a spliiit of porous brown paper, 
saturated with white of eggs, which hardens as it 
dries. A broken wing is best cared for by putting 
the feathers in position and binding tightly together 
about an inch from the end. But unless the accident 
happened to a very valuable fowl, . useful to breed 
from, the time and care necessary to successfully treat 
fractures are generally unprofitably wasted. 

Gapes 

This disease is caused by the windpipe of chickens 
or young fowls being infested with worms, eventually 
causing suffocation. How the disease is propagated is 
a debatable question. The worm is usually found 
doubled, of a pale reddish color, and rather less than 
three-quarters of an inch long. The number in one 
chicken usually varies from two to a dozen. Dirt and 
damp have undoubtedly a predisposing effect, as it is 
well known that gapes rarely ever trouble a clean and 
dry yard. 

By many it is supposed that the worm is generated 
in some manner by lice or a similar parasite which 
infests the head of young chicks, and as a preventive 
the following ointment, applied very lightly on the . 
back of the head, on the throat, and under the wings, 
in a melted or fluid state, at the time of taking chick- 



108 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

ens from the nest, is said to remedy the evil: Mer- 
curial ointment, i oz., pure lard, i oz. ; flour of 
sulphur, I oz. ; crude petroleum, i oz. It is stated on 
good authority that chicks anointed in this manner 
have never had the gapes, while others of the same 
broods not anointed, have been affected. Another 
.method of keeping the chicks free from the parasites 
that are supposed to produce gapes is to apply once a 
week, under the wings and on the breast of the hen, a 
small quantity of carbolic soap in solution. The 
effect of the ointment beginning to destroy the para- 
sites, would seem to give color to the theory that 
gapes are the result of the presence of lice or similar 
vermin, and would also tally very well with the fact 
that the disease is comparatively unknown in clean 
and comfortable quarters. A free use of carbolic dis- 
infecting powder is an excellent preventive. The 
disease may be checked after it has entered the yard, 
by using fluid carbonate, camphor, or lime in the 
drinking water, and the affected bird made to inhale 
the vapor of carbolic acid by placing a few drops on a 
red hot shovel, and holding the bird in the fumes until 
it is nearly suffocated. This kills the worms, and is 
an effectual cure. The worms may be taken from the 
throat, also, in the following manner: Take a medium 
soft quill feather, pluck the web from both sides to 
within a short distance of the tip, and wet with a solu- 
tion of 20 gi-ains carbolic acid and one ounce of glycer- 
ine. Run the feather down the windpipe, give it 
three or four turns and quickly withdraw. Repeat 
two or three times with a new feather each time. The 
acid paralyzes the worms, and the glycerine sticks 
them to the feather, and they are thereby drawn out 
of the trachea. The feathers and all matter drawn 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 109 

from the throat of the fowl should be burnt, in order 
to prevent the exposure of the rest of the flock to 
contagion. 

Another remedy is to administer a kernel of black 
pepper to the chick affected, which is said to destroy 

the worm. 

Leg Weakness 

Youngf fowls of the larger breeds frequently outgrow 
their strength from a lack of bony matter, shown by 
constant squatting about instead of walking or stand- 
ing. To prevent the occurrence of this affection, give 
all young fowls plenty of bone dust or broken bones 
and oyster shells. When first discovered it may be 
checked and strength restored by giving "Parrish's 
Chemical Food, ' ' a tablespoonf ul to a pint of water. 
A little tincture of muriate of iron in the drinking 
water is also beneficial. 

Gout 

This is a disease of the legs which can be distin- 
guished from leg weakness by the feverish condition of 
the legs. Remove the bird to a warm dry place, give 
a dose of jalap or calomel to open the bowels, after 
which a half-grain pill of extract of colchicum should 
be administered twice a day. The legs and joints may 
be well rubbed with sweet oil daily with benefit. 

Giddiness 
Usually resulting from too high feeding, and likely 
to develop in apoplexy. Hold the head under a 
stream of water, and reduce the system by a dose of 
castor oil, and feed on sparer diet. 

Lice 
To guard against the encroachment of lice and 
other like vermin, the walls of the sheds should be 



110 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

regularly washed every year with strong- lime-wash, 
containing a pound of sulphate of iron to every three 
gallons, applied hot from the slaking. A thorough 
syringing either with paraffine or a solution of carbolic 
acid will also be efficacious in getting rid of the annoy- 
ance. Carbolic acid is certain death to all insects, and 
is an invaluable aid to the resources of the poultry 
keeper. 

Experience proves that the free use of dry, sifted 
coal ashes is an excellent exterminator of these pests. 
The ashes may be sprinkled over the roosts, and a 
commodious box filled with this material should be 
provided for the fowls to dust in — a provision of which 
they seem to take pleasure in availing themselves. 
In making up nests for hatching, it is advisable to put 
ashes in the bottom and cover with clean straw. 
After the chicks make their appearance, the nests 
should be thoroughly cleansed and the straw and litter 
destroyed. In localities where coal ashes cannot be 
easily procured, good dry sand may be substituted, in 
which carbolic powder, or sulphur, or both has been 
sprinkled. 

It sometimes occurs that, in spite of all precautions, 
the vermin accumulate to such an extent that the 
house becomes literally alive with them. In such 
cases a thorough cleansing is necessary. All the hay 
and straw in the nests should be burnt, the hens 
driven out and the house closed tightly and fumigated 
with sulphur. This may be done by putting a pound 
or so of brimstone in an iron pot and dropping on it a 
piece of red-hot iron. Keep the house closed two or 
three hours, after which it should be well ventilated 
and swept out thoroughly. The walls, inside and out 
— in fact every place that can be reached — should be 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 111 

washed with hot water, in which has been dissolved 

tash, one pound to every quart of water. Then 
.V.II0W with kerosene oil. Fresh hay is needed for the 
nests, and assurance is made doubly sure by white- 
washing. This radical treatment is not accomplished 
without some trouble, but the result amply repays the 
labor. 

To Keep Lice Out of the Hen-House 

These pests are about the worst the poultry keeper 
has to contend with, and I therefore give a simple 
cure if not an entire preventive. 

Take a hot pan or iron pot, place it in the hen-house 
and pour into it at least one pound of sulphur. Be 
careful not to inhale the fumes. Close all windows 
and doors and let the lice enjoy the atmosphere for 
about two hours. Then air the house and give it a 
good coat of whitewash, not forgetting the roosts. 
Change the nests and you will find yourself free from 
these pests. 

Indigestion 

Loss of appetite, caused by feeding too highly sea- 
soned food. The diet should be restricted to soft, well 
cooked food, twice a day, with fresh water in moderate 
quantities, containing the "Douglas Mixture. " . Where 
a run cannot be had, a litde fresh grass cut fine is 
beneficial. If the disease does not yield to this treat- 
ment, give daily five grains of rhubarb, changed every 
fourth day for one of calomel. 

Liver Disease 

Most generally observed in cold and damp localities. 

Indigestion is frequently the forerunner of this disease, 

and the remedies recommended in such cases should 

be applied. If, however, the bird should take on a 



112 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

sickly, yellowish look about the head and comb, there 
is no doubt about serious enlargement of the liver. 
Alternative doses of mercury, followed by cod liver oil 
and Parrish's Food, may effect cures where not deep 
seated, but success cannot be expected where the mor- 
bid structures are of any considerable size. Poultry 
keepers should never breed from fowl affected in this 
way. 

Moulting 

Moulting is the discarding of the summer coat of 
feathers and putting one on suitable for cold weather. 
Perhaps many poultry keepers have never considered 
the great drain upon the system of the fowl during 
this change of covering. Not only do the regular 
flesh-forming, life-giving processes of nature have to 
be fulfilled, but an entire new coat of feathers has also 
to be manufactured. These feathers consist not of 
flesh and blood alone, but of component parts of min- 
eral and animal substances. These substances are 
assimilated from the food, and unless birds can obtain 
such food as contains the necessary qualities, the work 
drags, is prolonged, and the poor fowl droops and 
grows thinner in the vain endeavor to fulfill nature's 
requirements without the proper means to work with. 
The moulting season is the most critical period of the 
year for old fowls ; and yet, in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred, there is less care taken then than in the 
Spring, when everything is in their favor. Not only 
is an abundance of warming, nutritious food needed, 
but a tonic of some kind should also be given. Stale 
bread, sopped in old ale, given two or three times a 
week, is always beneficial ; but perhaps one of the best 
things is to use the *' Douglas Mixture," in the propor- 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 113 

tion of a teaspoonful to a pint of water, in the drink- 
ing fountain, and keep it by them during the whole 
time of moulting. A little hemp seed given every 
day is also beneficial, and with these aids, and a little 
pepper on their food, with perhaps a little extra meat, 
or even a little ale during the few weeks the process 
lasts, there will rarely be any loss. With hardy kinds 
and good shelter such precautions are hardly neces- 
sary but they cost little and have their effect also on 
the early recommencement of laying. A tonic that is 
also recommended is gin and molasses, in proportion 
to three parts gin to one of molasses. A tablespoon- 
ful is a dose for an adult fowl, giving it before feeding 
in the morning; where the fowls do not appear to 
have an unusually hard time, twice or three times a 
week is sufficient. But where the fowls are in close 
confinement, they must have iron in some shape. A 
little treatment of this kind not only benefits the 
health of the fowl, but shortens the period of moult- 
ing fully one-third. In addition to that, the growth 
of feathers is stronger and heavier, and the fowls are 
thus better able to stand the cold of winter. The 
appearance of the fowl is also vastly better, the 
feathers are lustrous, and appear as if oiled; the 
bird takes on fat at once, and meets the cold weather 
with a vigorous health and strength which otherwise 
he might not have. 

Pip 

The symptoms are a short, quick, spasmodic chir- 
rup, repeated at short intervals. On examination a 
dark colored, dry, horny scale will be found on the end 
of the tongue. This is not the disease, as many sup- 
pose, but the results of the disease. In some cases, if 



114 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

not checked, the beak will turn yellow at the base, and 
the plumage become ruffled; appetite fails, and the 
bird mopes around and finally dies. A little cayenne 
or black pepper mixed with meal and administered 
three times a day will generally effect a cure. Another 
remedy is to apply chlorinated soda to the horny scale 
on the tongue. This will soften the crust, which will 
come off without difficulty. Feed soft food and give a 
dose of castor oil or other aperient. 

Rheumatism 
> Weakness of the legs, stiffness of the joints, contrac- 
tion of the toes, are symptoms of this disease, which 
may be mistaken for cramps. The treatment is sim- 
ilar. The bird must be put in a warm and dry place, 
and fed with warm and rather stimulating food. The 
legs should be bathed in rather hot water containing 
some mustard, and afterwards dried. Half a grain of 
opium twice a day should be given internally. A little 
cooked meal every day is beneficial, and minute doses of 
oil of mustard have been of marked efficacy in some 
cases. 

Roup 
Probably the amateur, and sometimes even the expe- 
rienced breeder, turns more anxiously to the treatises 
on this disease than to any other, for the reason that 
it is at once the most annoying and destructive of the 
whole catalogue, though less to be dreaded now than 
formerly. Nearly all writers agree that roup results 
from exposure to damp, draughts and confinement in 
tainted coops. It is highly contagious, the germs of 
the disease being communicated by drinking or other 
contact. The symptoms of roup are at first identical 
with those of a severe cold ; the discharge from the 
nostril however, soon loses its transparent character, 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 116 

becoming- more or less opaque, with a peculiar and 
offensive odor; froth appears in the inner corner of the 
eye; the lids swell, and sometimes the eye-ball js 
entirely concealed. In very severe cases the cavity of 
the nose becomes filled with the diseased secretion, 
which cannot escape, owingf to the small size and 
closure of the nostril and then the face swells con- 
siderably. 

Treatment— In this disease, nearly equal numbers 
recover, under various modes of treatment, so far as 
relates to internal remedies. But in all cases the bird 
is at once to be isolated, and the water vessels imme- 
diately disinfected. McDoug-al's Fluid Extract is 
excellent for this purpose. Warm, dry lodging and 
stimulating nutritious food are the first essentials to 
recoverjr. The eyes and head should be frequently 
bathed with warm water and remedial agents of some 
kind applied to the diseased membrane. This is some- 
what difficult, on account of the nostrils being closed 
up, but may be overcome by inserting the point of a 
small syringe into the slit in the roof of the mouth and 
turning it rather to the outside for each nostril. 
Labarraque's solution of Chlorinated Soda is the injec- 
tion most in use by a number of the best fanciers. 
Tegetmeier says he has used a few drops of a dilute 
solution (lo grains to the ounce of water) of sulphate 
of copper, with very favorable results. The internal 
treatment is a dose of castor oil, to be followed every 
morning and evening by a pill of balsam copaiba, i oz. 
liquorice, in powder, ^ oz. ; piperine, i drachm, with 
enough magnesia added to make the mass into sixty 
doses or pills. A few drops of tincture of iron or 
McDougall's Fluid Extract should be added to the 
drinking water. 



116 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

We also present the following remedies, all of which 
are said to have effected cures in particular instances. 
Perhaps it would be well, in case a number of fowl are 
simultaneously attacked, to try them separately on 
different birds. That which acted most promptly 
might then be applied to all. 

No. I. Powdered sulphate of iron, -^ drachm; capsi- 
cum powder, i drachm; extract of liquorice, ^ oz. ; 
make into 30 pills. Give one at a time three times a 
day for three days ; then take ^ oz. sulphate of iron 
and I oz. cayenne pepper in fine powder. Mix care- 
fully a teaspoon ful of these powders with butter, and 
divide into ten parts. Give one part twice a day. 
-Wash the head, eyes and inside of the mouth and nos- 
trils with vinegar; it is very cleansing and beneficial. 

No. 2. As soon as the bird shows the usual sym- 
toms, take it to a small room or outhouse, close the 
door and windows, take a shovelful of red-hot coals 
from the stove and on them sprinkle flour of sulphur 
(pounded brimstone). Let the bird inhale this gas for 
about ten minutes — it will cause it to sneeze, and the 
congealed matter will be blown or thrown up through 
the nostrils and so relieve the poor bird and its symp- 
toms. 

No. 3. Bathe the head and throat in warm salted 
water, after which, with the thumb and finger open 
the eyes and wash them well with a rag saturated with 
salted warm water and then give a pill made of equal 
parts of cayenne pepper and prepared chalk. Follow 
this treatment every morning, and, if there be an)' 
rattling in the throat, give a teaspoonful of cod-liver 
oil every night. 

No. 4. In the first stages of the disease give a dose 
of castor oil, which will generally effect a cure ; but if 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 117 

the mouth and tonsils have become ulcerated, several 
doses may be necessary, given twelve hours apart. 
Use a small mop, dipped in vinegar, to cleanse the 
mouth, head, throat, and nostrils, after which dip a 
feather or mop in soft soap and touch every nicer. 

No. 5. Sugar of lead and pulverized opium, 20 
grains each ; mix with one pint of soft water. With a 
small syringe inject warm water into the nostril of 
the sick bird and then inject the lotion. By using a 
small bent tube on the syringe an injection can be 
forced into the nostril through the upper part of the 
mouth. Feed with soft food only, giving plenty of 
chopped vegetables, and mix ale with the food. 

No. 6. Bathe the head with tepid water and castile 
soap, removing all unhealthy secretions about the 
eyes, head or throat, and if there be any visible ulcera- 
tion wash well with a strong solution of alum water, 
and give a bolus of lard and sulphur mixed as large as 
an English walnut, at the same time anointing the 
head well with the mixture of lard and sulphur. 

No. 7. Wash the head with cresylic soap suds until 
the nostrils are opened and the eyes relieved. Then 
strip a feather to within half an inch of the end, and 
dipping it into diluted nitric acid, insert it into the 
nostril of the fowl. Two or three applications will 
generally be sufficient. 

No. 8 Five drops tincture of iron in a teaspoonful of 
water thrice a day. Feed the fowl with scalded food 
well seasoned with cayenne pepper. 

Undoubtedly the seeds of this disease are laid in 
the sudden changes from warm to cold nights, when 
the summer changes to fall, and the chickens are 
allowed to occupy their unprotected coops and wander 
about hungry and cold in the raw, early morning. 



118 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

This would especially tend to the development of roup 
if there should be a continued spell of damp weather, 
for roup, after all, is simply a chronic catarrh or cold. 
Upon the first indication of a change of weather in 
the fall, the young chicks should be provided with 
warm, dry quarters, and not allowed their liberty in 
the morning until fed. A plentiful supply of good, 
nutritious food and tincture of iron added to their 
water, with a little sulphur in their soft food, will be 
found of great benefit. Prompt attention to these 
matters will eventually result in preventing the appear- 
ance of the roup — the dreaded scourge of the poultry 
yard, 

Rump-Ail 
This difficulty, occasioned by the badness and infec- 
tion of the hen house, has for symptoms, constipation, 
slowness in walk, troubled sleep, sad way, low head, 
drooping tail and bristling feathers. The chicken does 
not scratch, and finally a tumor forms around the 
rump. It is necessary to cut this tumor with a sharp 
instrument, and press it with the fingers to expel the 
pus, then wash the wound with vinegar or stale wine, 
and feed with agreeable diet, like barley, bran, or 
broiled rye or lettuce. One of the first precautions to 
take is to purify the hen house. 

Scaly Legs 

Under the head of Elephantiasis will be found some 
remedies for this disease, but having come across the 
following, it was decided to insert them : 

Dissolve a little carbonate of soda (sal soda) in water 
and rub the feet and legs every day with this solution 
until the scurf is removed. After this is done and the 
feet and legs become dry, anoint them well with lard 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 119 

and sprinkle on some sulphur or red precipitate, or 
they may be made into an ointment before they are 
applied. 

Another remedy is to use an application of cocoanut 
oil or tumeric — the proportions are about one-fourth of 
an ounce of tumeric powder to an ounce of the oil ; 
this forms a yellow ointment. Apply it to the parts 
affected, and a few applications will be sufficient to 
effect a cure. 

Soft Eggs 

If a frequent occurrence, a sign of over-feeding. 
Reduce the food and feed s|)aringly on mashed pota- 
toes. In some cases, soft eggs occur from the entire 
absence of any material to form the shell. The fowl 
should be supplied with old mortar, burnt oyster shells 
pounded, or similar ingredients. Bricks are highly 
beneficial. 

Wrv Tail 

Carrying the tail to one side, strongly hereditary, 
and evidence of a weakly constitution. The surest 
way to cause its disappearance and prevent its recur- 
rence is to get rid of the fowl altogether. 

Turkeys 

The best preventive for sickness in these birds as well 
as to help them through the red is to mix finely cut 
onions or chives in their food, which ought to consist 
of Indian meal mixed with either milk or water, but 
small potatoes boiled and mashed with plenty of pep- 
per may be used with raw onions chopped fine instead. 

Kerosene as a Curative 
We have seen, recently, testimonials from so many 
quarters, as well South as North, as to the efficacy of 



120 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

kerosene oil in chicken cholera, as to inspire a hope 
that an unfailing remedy has at last been found for 
this hitherto most desolating disease. A Woodville, 
Miss., correspondent of the New Orleans "Home 
Journal," says: "I tried all the remedies mentioned 
in your paper for cholera, but none seemed to do any 
permanent good until I tried coal (kerosene) oil ; this 
has effectually arrested the disease, and I am satisfied 
is a good thing." In addition to this, the editor of 
the "Journal" says: "We had a pullet which was 
actually on its last legs, not being able or willing to 
feed any more. Our better half took some grits and 
mixed a sufficiency of kerosene with it to make into 
pills and crammed some of it down the throat of 
the fowl. The effect was almost instantaneous, 
as at the next feeding time it appeared with the 
other fowls and participated in the meal, and since 
then has been constantly improving. We now feed 
corn mixed in kerosene oil three times . a week, 
and since adopting this mode have had no new case 
of cholera. 

A correspondent writing to the "Country Gentle- 
man" from Habersham County, Ga., says: "I have 
found kerosene oil a cure for chicken cholera. Last 
year I lost my entire flock. This year, by soaking my 
corn in kerosene, but one has died, although several 
have been sick. 

A recent number of the "Southern Homestead" 
says that the curative power of kerosene has been as 
prompt in giving relief to an equine sufferer as to the 
pets of the poultry yard : "The peculiarly penetrating 
nature of kerosene makes it one of the best external 
applications for bruises, sore throat, diphtheria, etc. 
which can be employed. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 121 

Chlorate of Potash 

For internal administration to fowls for canker or 
roup, or for common colds or cough, chlorate of potash 
is said to be very beneficial and is at the same time a 
perfectly safe remedy to use. Water only dissolves a 
certain proportion and no more of the salt, and it 
should always be made as strong as it can be, which 
is making what is techincally called a "saturated solu- 
tion.' ' For convenience it is better to keep it prepared 
ready for use, as follows : Put in a half pint bottle an 
ounce of chlorate of potash and an ounce of crushed 
sugar, then fill the bottle with] water and shake occa- 
sionally until no more will dissolve. The sugar seems 
to serve the double purpose of loosening the phlegm 
in the throat of the fowl and to disguise the saline 
taste of the chlorate, making it more easy of adminis- 
tration. Chlorate of potash will not only remove can- 
ker and ulceration in the mouth and throat, but cools 
and allays fever and by its action in the stomach, 
destroys all traces of canker in the system of the fowl, 
thus rendering the cure a permanent one. After 
using off the water more may be added, as long as any 
of the chlorate remains, adding sugar each time, as 
the sugar, unlike the chlorate, all dissolves the first 
time. Give adult fowls a teaspoonf ul of the solution 
two or three times a day, in severe cases giving it 
oftener if required. An ounce of the solution in a 
pint of water is a good remedy for ^common colds and 
for young chicks, to be given in "place of drinking 
water, continuing for several days, or until a cure is 
effected. 

Charcoal — It is claimed that a free use of crushed 
charcoal will prevent the disease known as the enlarge- 



122 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

ment of the liver. It keeps the organs in a healthy 
state; their fondness for it would indicate some bene- 
fit derived from its use, the same as in the case of 
gravel. 

Corn or corn meal is the cheapest and best food for 
fattening fov\ds. Oat meal, bran, and middlings are 
the best for the young, gowing stock. 

Capsicum mixed with the food and assafoetida in the 
drinking water is recommended for cholera in fowls. 



MONEY VERSUS HUMANITY 

On page 60, I explained how the hen could be made 
to remain on the eggs only six days instead of twenty- 
one. This innovation in the way of hatching eggs, has 
naturally attracted the special attention of the editors 
of the principal agricultural newspapers, as well as the 
leading agricultural societies, and it has afforded me 
the pleasure of receiving from these distinguished par- 
ties, long and interesting letters confirming the fact 
that a great many breeders acknowledge that it is 
inhuman to compel the hen to remain twenty-one days 
on her eggs, and I hope that before long, all breeders 
will have abandoned this barbarous custom of a past age, 
and that they will recognize that not only will they be 
a real profit in their pockets, but by so doing, they 
will accomplish an act of humanity as well, in return 
for the good they derive from their hens; for the 
poultry yard in all farms is the one department that 
gives the less work and brings most benefit, for a few 
months after her birth the chick is sold with an 
immense profit. If the breeder keeps her in his stock 
she will yield him over 600. eggs in the space of four 
or five years, after which time he can sell her, still 
with a large profit. Among the numerous newspapers 
which advise and recommend the breeders to adopt 
this fin de siecle way of hatching eggs, I quote a few 
lines taken from a long article published in the "Chi- 
cago Tribune." 

"Hatching eggs without the help of the hen is the 
easiest matter possible, and in no sense whatever con- 

123 



124 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

trary to nature. . . . Here is an important considera- 
tion to farmers : In the winter months, especially out 
west, little farm work can be done ; but if our agricul- 
tural readers will only give their time to poultry-rais- 
ing on the above system during that period, the 
cash-books will show unexpected results at the annual 
balancing. The system itself is so simple that chil- 
dren of six or seven years of age can carry it out as 
well as adults, perhaps better, for they are more gen- 
tle and cautious in their actions. 

"Chickens hatched and raised by this process are as 
healthy and vigorous as any to be found; they are 
incomparably more numerous than those produced by 
what is ignorantly termed the 'natural' method. 
Some farmers, however, as well as many professional 
poultry breeders, possess such crowbar-like backbones 
that they cannot bend to any proposed improvement 
on the old style of doing things." — Chicago Tribune. 

The numerous readers of this important paper must 
have found this article severe. I will add that it is 
very just, and hope that a great number of them will 
practice the good advice given them with such frank- 
ness and sincerity, and those who will persist in fol- 
lowing an outrageous custom, will not only be guilty 
of neglecting their interests, but will also commit an 
act of cruelty to animals, which is punishable by the 
laws of man and condemned by our Great Master. 

THE AUTHOR. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 125 



Facts without believing are better than believing 
without facts. 

In order to satisfy intelligent farmers and poultry 
breeders upon the merit of my invention, I leave them 
to read very carefully the list of awards and the high 
encomiums bestowed upon it by the leading press, of 
which a few quotations are printed in the following list. 



INTERtSATIONAL EXHIBITION 



THE 
UNITED STATES CENTENNIAL COMMISSION 

Has examined the Report of the Judges, and accepted 
the following reasons, and decreed an award in con- 
formity therewith. 

REPORT ON AWARDS 

INCUBATOR AND ARTIFICIAL MOTHER 

PROF. ADOLPH CORBETT, 

The undersigned, having examined the product 
herein described, respectfully recommends the same 
to the United States Centennial Commission, for award 
for the following reasons, viz: 

The apparatus is simple, and, provided proper 
atttention is paid to keeping up an even temperature, 
efficient. It comprises two distinct circular boxes, 
which are surrounded by fresh horse "manure. The 
degree of heat can be regulated by a ventilator at the 
top. The second box, where the chickens are reared, 
contains a circular cap, the under side covered with 
long wool, adjusted by means of a vertical rod with a 
screw head, to which it is attached. There is nothing 
to get out of order. 

JOHN COLEMAN 

APPROVAL OF GROUP JUDGES 

JAMES BRUCE PEDRO PAES LEME 

E. OLDENDORFF IKEDO KENZO 

JAS. S. GRINNELL 

FRANCIS A. WALKER, 

[A true copy of the Record.] Chief of Bureau of Awards. 

Given by authority of the U. S. Centennial Commission, 

J. L. C.4lMPBELL, a. T. GOSHORN, 

Secretary. Director-General. 

J. II. HAWLEY, 

President. 
126 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 127 



OFFICAL AWARDS 

MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE INTERNA- 
TIONAL EXHIBITION, PHILADELPHIA 

MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE AMERICAN 
INSTITUTE 

GRAND MEDAL OF HONOR AT THE INTER- 
NATIONAL EXHIBITION AT SANTL 
AGO, CHILI 

GOLD MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE 

QUEENS COUNTY AGRICULTURAL 

SOCIETY 

GOLD MEDAL AND DIPLOMA BY THE 

FARMERS' AND MECHANICS' CLUB, 

HICKSVILLE, N. Y. 

NEW YORK STATE FAIR, ROCHESTER 
Fir«t Premium and Certificate of Merit 

ALBANY, AGRICULTURAL AND ARTS 
ASSOCIATION 

First Premium and Certificate of Merit for Incubator 
and Artificial Mother 



128 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

SARATOGA COUNTY AGRICULTURAL 
SOCIETY 

First Premium and Diploma of Merit for Incubator 
and Artificial Mother 

SUFFOLK COUNTY AGRICULTURAL 
SOCIETY 

First Premium and Diploma of Merit for Incubator 
and Artificial Mother 

DIPLOMA OF CONTINUED EXCELLENCE BY 
THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE 

DIPLOMA BY THE NEW JERSEY STATE 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY CAPITAL STATE FAIR ASSO- 
CIATION, AUSTIN, TEXAS 

DIPLOMA BY NORTHEASTERN* AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF INDIANA 

DIPLOMA BY EGG HARBOR CITY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY, NEW JERSEY 

DIPLOMA BY MUSCATINE, IOWA, AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY FREEMONT, OHIO, AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 139 

DIPLOMA BY CARROLLTON, OHIO,' AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY BROCTON, MASS., AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY COLUMBIA COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF PENN'A 

DIPLOMA BY DELAWARE COUNTY, OHIO, 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY UNION FAIR ASSOCIATION, OF 
CENTRALIA, ILL. 

DIPLOMA BY JO-DAVIESS COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF GALENA, ILL. 

DIPLOMA BY FRANKLIN COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF PENN'A 

DIPLOMA BY COSHOCTON, OHIO, AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY JEFFERSON COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF OHIO 

DIPLOMA BY DENISON, IOWA, AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 

DIPLOMA BY LUCAS COUNTY AGRICULTU- 
RAL SOCIETY OF IOWA 



130 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

DIPLOMA BY MACOMB COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF MICHIGAN 



DIPLOMA BY FRANKLIN COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF FARMINGTON, MAINE 

DIPLOMA BY BRADFORD COUNTY AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF TOWANDA, PA. 

DIPLOMA BY EATON COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF CHARLOTTE, MICH. 

DIPLOMA BY STARK COUNTY AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY OF CANTON, OHIO 



DIPLOMA BY LEWANEE, MICH., AGRICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY LIVINGSTON COUNTY, N. Y., 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY THE VAN BUREN COUNTY 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, PAW PAW, MICH. 



DIPLOMA BY THE LYON COUNTY, IOWA, 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



DIPLOMA BY THE HILLSDALE COUNTY, 
MICH., AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 131 



FEW EXTRACTS OF THE PRESS OPINIONS 
AND OF THE OFFICIAL REPORTS, RE- 
FERRING TO THE INVENTION 

New York State Fair, Annual Official Report 

The point of great attraction in this building was 
the corner devoted to the exhibition of Corbett's 
apparatus for hatching and raising poultry. It was in 
full operation, with a yard in front swarming with 
little chicks. The apparatus invented by Prof. Cor- 
bett has the advantage of not being dangerous because 
of the use of fire. The decomposition of the manure 
furnishes the requisite heat. 

Queen's County Agricultural Society, 
jjd Annual Report 

"The Society awarded a special Premium of a Gold 
Medal to Prof. A. Corbett of Hicksville, for his 
Chicken Incubator and Artificial Mother; a very valu- 
able invention, which has attracted much attention." 

American Agriculturist^ N. V. 

Of late years there have been many efforts made to 
perfect a method of artificial incubation, and to get rid 
c<f the hen, which unfortunately is too fussy and too 
slow for our advanced ideas. Now that poultry bears 
so high a price, and young chickens for broilers are 
worth more than full-grown fowls, it is very desirable 
to have some way of improving upon the slow and 
unsatisfactory methods provided by nature. The most 
promising of all the methods, old or new, with which 
we have become acquainted, is the one here illustrated 
and described. It is the invention of Prof. A. Cor- 
bett, in which the old-fashioned heating material, 
horse-dung, is used. The apparatus consists of a 



132 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

rounded box (Fig. i) made of laths, having a door in 
the front and a movable cover at the top, in which is a 
ventilating flue having a graduated opening closed by 
a slide. This is placed in the center of a pile of horse- 



FiG I. — Professor Corbett's Incubator 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 



133 



manure, which raises the necessary heat iti a short 
time. When this has occurred, the eggs, arranged in 
wire sieves or frames, are placed in a box, and the 
cover is put on. The heat is carefully regulated by 
the ventilating slide, when shown to be necessary by 



i^^^^ 



^^ 




Fig 



■Professor Corbett's Artificial Mother 



a thermometer laid upon the eggs. When the chickens 
appear the mother is made ready for them. This is a 
box exactly the same as the incubator, but provided 
with a horizontal disk, covered on the under side with 
a piece of sheep-skin from a long-wool sheep, and 



134 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

arranged to be moved tip and down by a screw. The 
manure is heaped partly around the box, to provide 
the needed warmth, the door is let down for a path- 
way in and out for the chicks (see Fig. 2), and in this 
they are placed as soon as ready to be removed from 
the incubator. After having been fed a few times the 
chicks will learn to come out from beneath the wool 
to feed, when the platform is tapped. Mr. Corbett has 
been very successful in using his apparatus, and when 
visiting his establishment, we saw proof of his success. 

New York Herald 

. . . The invention of Prof. Corbett, of Hicksville, 
N. Y., for which several medals were awarded him by 
all the great exhibitions, cannot fail to be of great 
service to farmers and breeders. Poultry, which is a 
source of great revenue in Europe generally, and in 
France particularly, has not received in America all 
the attention it deserves, and it is really surprising that 
a country of such vast resources and rich in products 
of all sorts as ours should be compelled to import eggs 
from Europe. 5,467,264 dozen eggs, valued at $732,- 
234, have been imported from Europe in the space of 
eleven months and thrown upon the markets, notwith- 
standing the fact that by the time they arrived here 
they were at least forty days old. We believe that 
Prof. Corbett's invention will be of great service to 
our business men and breeders as an improvement of 
the greatest importance, for the consumption of eggs 
in this country is calculated to be about $60,000,000 
annually. 

New York Tribune 

Poultry breeders are well aware that the use of the 
hen is entirely unnecessary so far as hatching is con- 
cerned, her value beyond egg-laying being confined to 
sheltering and warming the chickens after they burst 
their shells. A hen lays on an average some 100 eggs 
annually, but she only sits once, hatching seldom more 
than seven during her period of incubation. If she 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 135 

could hatch the whole number she lays, or even four- 
fifths only, there would clearly be a greater chance of 
profit for the breeder; and many devices have in con- 
sequence been set on foot to substitute artificial means ; 
for the motherly duties of the hen. Professor Cor- 
bett has accomplished this result by his discovery, and 
as he is carrying out his invention on an immense 
scale at Hicksville, the readers of "The Tribune" may 
learn something from a report of his operations. . . . 
All known descriptions of domestic poultry are hatched 
and raised on this estate by the above means (horse- 
manure). These descriptions include common barn- 
yard fowls, Dorkings, Game, White Leghorn, Black 
Spanish, Brahmas, Shanghais, and, as some amateurs 
choose to call them, Cochin-Chinas and Brahma- 
pootras. They are all amenable to the same system, 
as well as geese, turkeys, ducks, partridges, etc., and 
all of them are equally productive and remunerative. 
His process is alike valuable to the housewife of 
moderate means, passing her leisure moments in the 
poultry yard, as to the breeder on a large scale who 
seeks to supply great city markets with eggs and 
chickens. 

Moore's Rural New Yorker 

The poultry breeder experiences considerable diffi- 
culty and no small amount of loss from the fact that 
so few hens are good setters. It has long been a well 
ascertained truth that the females of certain breeds are 
all but valueless for this purpose. . . . There is no 
necessity, however, for the employment of hens in the 
hatching of eggs, and ancient Egyptians, three thou- 
sand years ago, having accomplished the required 
result by artificial means alone. Other nations in 
later years have produced similar effects by like 
methods, so that it is safe to say that, beyond the duty 
of laying eggs, hens are not needed in the poultry- 
yard. A visit to the Gallinoculture Institute of Pro- 
fessor Adolphe Corbett, at Hicksville, L. I., will satisfy 
the most skeptical on this point. Fowls of all breeds 



136 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

and ages are there to be found in immense numbers ; 
all of them in the best condition of health, aiid all 
hatched and raised artificially. The system employed 
is the invention of Mr. Corbett himself, the sole caloric 
agent being horse manure. . . . The poultry raised by 
this method are in all respects as healthy and vigorous 
as any to be seen elsewhere, while, at the same time, 
none of them are lamed, as too frequently is the case 
by natural mothers. . . . Mr. Corbett's establish- 
ment, in fact, proves that poultry of all kinds can be 
equally well hatched, and far better raised by his sys- 
tem than by what is known as the "natural" method. 
Being a breeder on a large scale, he has fair oppor- 
tunities for judging the commercial value of his inven- 
tion ; and he asserts that the cost of production by his 
system saves from twenty to twenty-five per cent over 
the usual method. This is a practical exemplification 
of the old saying that, "the proof of the pudding is in 
the eating," and high authorities endorse Mr. Cor- 
bett's conclusions. The N. Y. State Agricultural 
Society, at its annual meeting last year, awarded him 
their Silver Medal for his invention; and the judges 
of the Queens County Agricultural Society likewise 
gave him their Gold Medal and Diploma. 



American Artisan 

American Institute Fair. — We have only room left 
to notice Professor A. Corbett's Apparatus for hatch- 
ing and raising every kind of Poultry. . . . Each 
apparatus is combined for hatching and also for rais- 
ing. The mother is of a size in proportion with that 
of the hatching apparatus. . . . Spring chickens by 
this process are ready for the market all the year 
round, every month in the year, every week in the 
month, and his process is alike valuable to the house- 
wife of moderate means, passing her leisure moment 
in the poultry-yard, as to the breeder on a larger scale, 
who seeks to supply great city markets with eggs and 
chickens. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 137 



Philadelphia Weekly Press 

It will be well for our readers to recognize the vastly 
superior advantages of artificial hatching over what is 
termed the natural. A hen will lay from 120 to 250 
eggs annually, but she seldom sets more than once 
during that period, hatching on the average about 
seven. The great majority of her eggs are thus only 
useful for culinary purposes, but were these placed in 
Corbett's incubator, all of them would become chickens 
within three weeks, except those which turn out to be 
"clear," or unvitalized. Three months later, at a 
cost in these parts not exceeding twenty-five cents per 
head, the little ones will have grown into "spring 
chickens," selling in this city and neighborhood at 
from seventy-five cents apiece to a dollar and a half. 
Is not this a remimerative outlay of capital? Mr, 
Adolphe Corbett, the inventor of the process we are 
about to describe, is a young-looking man of forty 
years and a native of Belgium. He has devoted most 
of his life-time to the study of animals, and besides 
being a frequent contributor to the scientific journals 
of France and the land of his birth, he is the author of 
several works on ornithology, etc. . . . During the 
last severe winter, with the snow lying several feet 
deep on the ground, he was almost overrun with 
young chickens, nearly all of them growing into strong 
and healthy birds, notwithstanding the inclemency of 
the weather. 

Scientific A merican 

Any farmer who possesses a manure-heap, according 
to the inventor of a new incubator, is provided with 
the essential means of artificially hatching chickens. 
The idea is to utilize the natural heat of the manure to 
produce and maintain the requisite temperature for 
the incubating process. The apparatus, which is quite 
simple, consists of a cask or cylinder of wood, near the 
bottom of which is a door for convenient access to the 
interior. . . . When the chickens appear, the interior 



138 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

of the cask is cleaned, and an artificial mother inserted 
and adjusted to a proper height from the bottom. 
The manure is still left around the latter, the heat 
being necessary for the young chickens until they 
have grown sufficiently to warrant their removal. 

American Aritsan 

Prof. Corbett is a Belgian gentleman, who has made 
the subject of artificial poultry-raising a matter of 
long study, and who has written a history of artificial 
incubation which is, we think, the best essay we have 
ever read upon the subject. Moreover, he has in- 
vented, and through the "American Artisan" Patent 
Agency, has recently obtained a Patent for an appa- 
ratus for hatching and rearing poultry, which is a 
remarkable advance upon all previous attempts in this 
line. The artificial heat obtained from fermenting 
manure has long been used in the forcing of seeds to 
early and strong germination. Precisely the same 
principle is adopted by Mr. Corbett, the heat of 
manure-beds being employed to hatch his chickens. 
We recommend everybody interested in this subject to 
write to Professor Corbett for his book which will be 
found extremely interesting. 

PhiladdpJiia Sunday Stin 

Among the incubators actually oh exhibition at 
the Centennial, in the Agricultural Hall, we have 
noticed that of Prof. A. Corbett, manager of the 
Gallinoculture Institute, situated at Hicksville, N. Y. 
This incubator works without fire or lamps. All the 
necessary heat is obtained by the heat of horse 
manure, which surrounds the apparatus. The tem- 
perature is regulated by means of a thermometer and 
of the chimneys. By this system all persons having at 
their disposition some horse-manure, can raise poultry 
during all the year; for this apparatus does not only 
answer for the purpose of the incubator, but by a sim- 
ple and ingenious arrangement is transformed into an 
artificial mother. It is more than one hundred and 
twenty-five years since this system was discovered by 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 139 

the celebrated De Reaumur, French physician, and if 
to-day the farmers and American breeders can use this 
process, it will be on account of Prof. A. Corbett, 
who has neglected no trouble, time, or money to make 
this discovery practicable. This enterprising gentle- 
man has exhibited his apparatuses at the New York 
State Fair, the American Institute, and at a great 
many county fairs. He has also had the satisfaction 
of seeing his process not only praised by the most lead- 
ing and competent newspapers, but also admired by 
more than one million of persons. 

Prof. A. Corbett has received for his discovery all 
the- reward than an inventor may ever hope to obtain. 
And the visitors can see Prof. Corbett's space, over 
50 feet square, covered by diplomas, bronze and gold 
medals, given by State and county fair and also by 
the American Institute. As all our readers may 
believe, this important discovery has caused a little 
revolution in the poultry breeders' population. But 
this revolution is calming since Prof. A. Corbett has 
written a work in which he explains all his process. 
We have read this book and have found it the most 
valuable and the most interesting work for poultry 
men and farmers w^hich has ever been published. 

Nezv York Herald 

About two years ago we informed the readers of the 
•'Weekly Herald" that Prof. A. Corbett, of Hicksville, 
L. I., was hatching and raising poultry by means of 
horse-manure. This discovery has been perfected 
and extensively known through the energy and perse-' 
verance of the inventor. He has also submitted his 
system to competent judges, who have awarded him 
various recompenses. Professor Corbett's system 
consists of a simple apparatus made of wood, which is 
placed in the middle of a heap of horse-manure, about 
eight feet long and four feet thick, the capacity of this 
apparatus varying from 100 to 1,000 eggs, according 
to the wants of the operator. After great experience 
and the sacrifice of thousands of eggs, lost in trials at 



140 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

different times, the inventor has won complete suc- 
cess. The eggs are cooled off by exposure to the fresh 
air the same as when the hen covers them. Every 
one is aware that the hen, while setting, cools off her 
eggs, either in leaving the nest every day for twenty 
or thirty minutes or else changes their position under 
her; for nothing is more curious than this instinct of 
nature. It is the heat combined with the air that 
hatches the chicken, and which is necessary to give 
life to the chick. Professor Corbett having a thorough 
knowledge of poultry raising, and having invested 
$50,000 in it, was not willing to stop to consider it as a 
luxury, but has taken nature as she is, and what so 
natural as to use the manure made on a farm for this 
purpose? After using the apparatus for twenty-one 
days as a hatcher in the manure-heap it is turned into 
a mother. Thus, without steam, lamps, or hens, the 
Professor is enabled to raise poultry. In a new book 
which Professor Corbett has written, he frankly 
declares that it is not to him that any honor is due for 
this discovery, but entirely to that celebrated De 
Reaumur, who made many experiments, and who, on 
St. Martin's day, 1747, read before the Academy of 
Sciences in Paris, a report in which he gave an account 
of his experience and success. As often happens, this 
report was lost sight of, with others, and it no longer 
became a question interesting to the public press. 

Professor A. Corbett constructed a "poultry factory" 
upon a farm of 100 acres, his buildings covering 8,000 
square feet. According to the author's idea, when we 
eat an egg we consume an unripe fruit, not as regards 
our health, but in a commercial sense. Why is it, he 
asks, that all the eggs are not made iiito chickens? 
Because nature has only allowed the hen to hatch part 
of her eggs. A hen lays on an average 120 eggs 
yearly. Of this number she hatches out about 10 
only; the others are sold at, say two cents each, mak- 
ing $2.20. Let us suppose that of the no eggs 75 
only are turned into chickens, and are sold at 50 cents 
each, we would realize the sum of $37.50. Now 
deduct the value of the eggs, $2.20, and feed for chicks 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 141 

at 20 cents each, $15; total cost $17.20. It would 
leave as profit $20.30 more than by the present system 
to each hen. Now, in France, they feed 40,000,000 
hens, and realize $80,000,000. According to the above 
statement they would realize $801,000,000, or $721,- 
000,000 more. These figures certainly deserve notice 
and are worth studying. 

Chicago Daily Tribune 

A new system of breeding poultry by artificial 
means has much interested the farmers of this State 
during the past twelve months. The invention con- 
sists in hatching and raising all kinds of domestic fowl 
by the aid of horse-manure alone. It is the work of a 
Belgian gentleman, Prof. Adolphe Corbett, who has 
made this country his permanent home, and is now 
seeking to indoctrinate his views regarding poultry- 
management upon the agricultural community. For 
this purpose he has carried on an immense chicken 
factory on Long Island during the past year, proving 
conclusively to those who have visited it, that fowls, 
ducks, geese, turkeys, etc., can be hatched and raised 
by his apparatus in far greater numbers, and at much 
less expense, than by any other known system. . . . 
Chickens hatched and raised by the process above 
described are as healthy and vigorous as any to be 
found elsewhere, and they are incomparably more 
numerous than those produced by what is ignorantly 
termed the "natural" method. Some farmers, how- 
ever, as well as many professional poultry-breeders, 
possess such crowbar-like backbones that they cannot 
bend to any proposed improvement on the old style of 
doing things. Here, however, is one fact that the 
most obstinate among them can comprehend : a hen 
sets twenty-one days. As soon as she makes known 
her intention to hatch, take a dozen or thirteen eggs 
out "of the Corbett Incubator which have already 
undergone the process of hatching, say, fifteen days, 
and place them in the hen's nest. Six days afterward 
they will hatch, and the hen no longer suffers from 
her useless sentimentality for setting. 



142 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 



The Evening Post, N. Y. 

This machine, or rather machinery, as there are two 
processes connected with it, does the whole work with 
the exception of producing the eggs. The eggs are 
put into one compartment and the artificial heat 
required for incubation is obtained from manure. 
When the chickens are hatched there is an artificial 
mother provided, under which they brood as comfort- 
able as with the hen. 

New York Weekly News 

The cost of the Corbett Apparatus is so moderate as 
to place it within the reach of almost every family in 
the Union; and we shall probably find these "Incu- 
bators" and "Mothers," before long, necessary 
appendages in most of our farms and poultry-yards, 
while spring chickens, ducks and turkeys will be sell- 
ing at one-third the price we have to pay for them now. 

Chicago Weekly Tribune 

Hatching eggs without the help of the hen is the 
easiest matter possible, and in no sense whatever con- 
trary to nature. Ostriches never hatch theirs, nor do 
alligators, crocodiles, snakes, the world of insects, or 
the teeming denizens of the waters. Where the hen 
really becomes what is thought to be necessary, is 
when she "gathers her chickens under her wings," so 
as to warm and succor them. Corbett's artificial 
mothers effect the same result not merely as well as 
the hen, but in some respects far better; for they 
never trample upon, lame, nor kill the chicks, nor do 
they lose them in the fields, or give them the rheuma- 
tism by leading them over wet ground. The vast 
crowds of young chickens to be seen, from time to 
time, at the Hicksville Institute, practically prove that 
the system there adopted is a correct one; for the 
youngsters are as bright in plumage, ravenous, and 
active as any to be found elsewhere, while the mor- 
tality amongst them is incomparably less. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 143 

The Corbett system is equally operative in the dead 
of winter as during spring, summer, or fall. Last 
January and February, with the snow many feet deep 
on Long Island, and the mercury trying its best to 
run through the bottom of tLe thermometer, the Insti- 
tute at Hicksville was literally overrun with thousands 
of newly-born chickens, which three months afterward 
sold for $1.50 the pair. Here is an important con- 
sideration to farmers. In the winter months, espe- 
cially out west, little farm work can be done ; but if 
our agricultural readers will only give their time to 
poultry raising on the above system during that 
period, their cash-books will show unexpected results 
at the annual balancing. The system itself is so sim- 
ple, as well as the management of the apparatus, that 
children of six or seven years of age can carry it out 
as well as adults, perhaps better, for they are more 
gentle and cautious in their actions than dashing, 
broad-shouldered, leg-of-mutton-fisted farmers of forty 
or fifty years of age. Any description, lengthy or 
otherwise, of this new system of hatching and raising 
poultry can never be so convincing as when seen in 
actual operation. The little chicks pouring out of the 
incubators, and running in and out of the artificial 
mothers, tell a more eloquent story than any pen can 
write. 

Nezv York Sunday News 

It is an old and true saying that "the man who 
causes two blades of grass to grow where only one was 
found before," is a benefactor of his race, and judged 
by this standard, Professor Adolphe Corbett of the 
Gallinoculture Institute, Hicksville, L. I,, deserves 
the gratitude of his fellow citizens. In the establish- 
ment founded and conducted by him he hatches and 
raises poultry of all descriptions by the simple use of 
horse-manure; not merely rendering hens entirely 
unnecessary, except for laying eggs, but multiplying 
the number of his chickens, ducklings, etc., at least 
tenfold. 



144 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

Long Island Fanner, N. Y. 

One of the most interesting exhibitions on the 
grounds of the Queens County Agricultural Society is 
that made by Mons. Corbett, a French gentleman 
residing at Hicksville, who has a chicken incubator in 
full operation, the necessary heat being generated by 
ordinary stable-manure. A large breed of chickens 
were hatched in plain sight yesterday. 

Hempstead Inquirer , N. Y. 

Corbett's Hatching Apparatus. — The exhibition at 
the late Fair of the Queens Country Agricultural 
Society of Corbett's Hatching Apparatus attracted 
universal attention and comment. It was something, 
the value of which to farmers and poultry raisers was 
comparatively unknown. Its utility was endorsed by 
the Agricultural Society, as will be seen by reference 
to the action of its directors at their meeting on the 
17th inst., published elsewhere. The award of a gold 
medal and diploma to Mr. Corbett is but a just 
acknowledgment of the value of his apparatus, and 
will be approved by all who, like ourselves, have seen 
the incubator in operation. 

Daily Saratogian, N. Y. 

Hatching Chickens Artificially. — The idea of hatch- 
ing eggs by artificial heat is no new one, nor even the 
idea of using the natural, even heat of a manure-pile; 
but no one has succeeded before this wide-awake 
Frenchman, Mons. Corbett, in inventing a simple 
apparatus for utilizing that kind of heat. After much 
experimenting and expense, at last Mons. Corbett 
completed an invention, very successful in hatching 
healthy chickens, and said by good judges to be the 
great discovery of recent years. Several of the boxes 
with their sliding-doors, ventilation-pipes, etc., are on 
exhibition, and within an enclosure in Mechanics' Hall 
are dozens of chicks of different breeds and ages run- 
ning about or scuffling for crumbs and grain. A 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 145 

crowd stood about this exhibition hour after hour, and 
indeed it is one of the mot interesting features of the 
fair. 

Boston Traveler 

All who raise poultry, whether for profit or amuse- 
ment, should read a book by Prof, A, Corbett, inventor 
of the incubator and artificial mother. . . . The pro- 
fessor is the most successful poultry farmer, and the 
system he adopts is the correct one. . . . Fowls, 
ducks, turkeys, and geese can be hatched and raised 
by means of his Incubator and Artificial Mother, with 
four-fold the success and at less than half the expense 
of any other known method. The work may by car- 
ried on at all seasons of the year alike, spring, sum- 
mer, autumn, or even in the depth of winter; it goes 
forward equally well all the year round, and what is 
more, the management of the apparatus is so simple 
that quite young children can attend to it quite as 
well, if not better, than adults. ... By means of 
Prof. Corbett 's Incubator every vitalized egg may be 
turned into a chicken. , . . The cost of the Corbett 
apparatus is very moderate ; so moderate, indeed, as 
to place it within the reach of every owner of poultry 
throughout the country; and we cordially recommend 
an investigation of facts and figures in connection 
therewith. 

Cincinnati Weekly Times 

Hatching eggs without the help of the hen is the 
easiest matter possible, and in no sense whatever con- 
trary to nature, as Prof. Corbett ably demonstrates in 
his book. Every farmer and housewife should read 
this work, in which is shown that it needs simply a 
manure-heap to accomplish this result. 

New York Illustrated Weekly 

At the late exhibition in Agricultural Hall, Column 
C. was an exhibit which at all times attracted great 
numbers. It consisted of an Incubator ami Artificial 
Mother for hatching eggs and raising poultry of every 



14G HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

kind. This, however, was not done by the old and 
very dangerous methods, long ago condemned, of gas 
or kerosene flame, the heat generated by horse-manure 
being the only agent used. The idea of iising the heat 
obtainable from manure of this purpose is not new. 
In 1747, on St. Martin's Day, the celebrated scientist, 
Reaumur, member of the Royal Academy of Sciences 
at Paris, wrote to that Academy a paper setting forth 
and explaining his researches and success in giving 
life to the embryonic fowl by the heat of horse-manure 
alone. But this valuable discovery has reached perfec- 
tion through the labors and researches of Prof, Adolph 
Corbett, who received a patent for his apparatus, . , . 
Gold medals have been awarded to Prof. Corbett by 
the judges at the Centennial Exhibition, the American 
Institute, State and county fairs, as well as a number 
of diplomas. The discovery will undoubtedly be of 
great benefit to all who breed poultry for pleasure or 
profit, especially those who make it a business to sup- 
ply the markets of our large cities. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 147 



NOTE 

The Scientific Poultry Breeders' Asso- 
ciation, being desirous to place Prof. A. 
Corbett's plan among the poultry breeders, 
which will enable them to be benefitted by 
this wonderful discovery, has secured all 
rights to dispose of in the United States of 
America the right to make and operate a 
similar apparatus, of which a letter of pat- 
ent, number 164810 has been granted to 
the said Prof Adolph Corbett. If the 
party would not use new wood, this appar- 
atus can be made by utilizing the laths used 
in a flour barrel, therefore the association 
has printed an elaborate illustrated book, 
containing plans explaining how all parts 
and sections are constructed, and how they 
must be adjusted together for the hatching 
apparatus, as well as for the brooder, also 
how to arrange the manure and a guide to 
regulate its temperature. 



148 HOW TO MAKE $500 PROFIT 

The rights for the personal use will be 
granted on the following terms: 

For 100 Eggs' Capacity and Brooder $ 5.00 
" 500 " " " " 10.00 

"1,000 ' " " " 15.00 

The above amount must be paid at the 
time of sending the application, either by 
registered letter, post office order, or by 
express company. 

Address — 

THE SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN POULTRY 
BREEDERS' ASSOCIATION. 

Masonic Temple, Chicago, III. 



NOTE — The right to construct an apparatus of 100 
eggs* capacity, allows also to make one brooder, and 
five for 500, or ten for 1,000 eggs' capacity. 

NOTE. — If desired, an Apparatus will be supplied 
at the following prices : 

100 eggs' capacity $ 25.00 

500 *' 80.00 

1,000 *' 150.00 

Every apparatus of 100 eggs' capacity contains also 
a mother: for instance, 500 eggs' capacity has five 
mothers attached to it. 



YEARLY FROM TWELVE HENS 149 




This Figure Represents an Apparatus Having One 
Hundred Eggs Inside in Incubation. 



GRADUAL 

Transformation of an Egg 



DURING ITS STAY IN 



THE APPARATUS 



AFTEH^WURS 




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JZ""-" DAY 




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20 V' DAY 




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Those wishing to buy the right for 
foreign countries, must write to the 
inventor, care of the Scientific Amer- 
ican Poultry Breeders' Association, 
Masonic Temple, Chicago, 111, 



FACTS 



"This book cannot fail to be of great service to 
farmers. ' ' 

— New York Herald. 



'An important consideration to farmers." 

— Chicago Tribune. 



"Every farmer and housewife should read this 
book." 

— Cincinnati Times. 



'Cannot fail to be of great service to farmers." 

— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 



"We saw the proof of Prof. Corbett's success." 

— American Agriculturist. 



"Should be in the hands of all who devote time and 
attention to the raising of fowls." 

— Boston Traveler. 



"Nothing has ever been published which will prove 
so important to the farming interest. 

— N. Y. Long Island Farmer. 



How to Make 

$500 Yearly Profit 

WITH TWELVE HENS 



HOW TO MAKE THEn SET SIX DAYS 
INSTEAD OF TWENTY-ONE 



A WONDERFUL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 

FOR WHICH 

45 /IDeDals anO S)tplomas 

HAVE BEEN AWARDED TO 

Profesoo? oi Gall}noi?i^lti;rf';S(;i^pcW,* V 



Price, $t,00 



CHICAGO 

Scientific American Poultry Breeders' Association 

PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY OF 


CON6RE8S, 


Two Copies Recsivec 


APR. 25 1901 


COPVRWHT EWTBY 

CLASS O^XXc. N». 

6<f7t 


COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT, 190 1, BY 
WILLIAM E. HURLBUT, CHICAGO 




^^/U^ 



RV OF CONGRESS 



